How to test your air

Today, I wanted to share with you how I tested my air for mold.

I apologize for being absent so long, we are in the process of moving back into our house and remodeling! Praise the Lord! However working two jobs and not having the internet installed has taking a toll on my writing.

Today I am taking a break from the house remodeling and utilizing the public library! Thankful for such an amazing amenity.

By doing things differently we were able to save this house from mold instead of losing it as we did our first house.

One of the things I did before I moved home was to take air samples. I wanted to make sure that there were not spores floating around in the air since they make me so sick. You can read about mold mycotoxins on a different post.

Although the carpenters had removed the mold, there were still spores in the air as the samples did not come back clear enough for my satisfaction. You want the samples to be the same or lower than the amount in the outdoor control sample.

Some of you have asked how I tested the air.

The first time, I tested the air was in our second house before I bought it. It was part of our house offer that it had to pass not only the house inspection but a mold air sample test as well.

I used a company out of Kansas City, Missouri called Titan Environmental. They did a great job. Gave me a detailed analysis as well as information on each type of spore they found. However, I live a good distance away and they charged quite a bit to come.

This time, I wanted to test every room in the house and they were just too expensive. I used a home mold-detection kit called My Mold Detective. You can find it at Home Depot, but I bought mine on Amazon.

It cost around $50 and came with a couple air sample cassettes. I ordered more. It came with a prepaid FedEx shipping bag and the label as well. The kit also had topical tape testers so you could take samples of actual mold that you could see.

I was impressed with the results. It was a three day turn around lab time after they received the samples, so it took about a week total. The samples themselves cost the same amount as the Kansas City company, $35 per sample.

It was super easy to use, just place the cassette on the machine and push the button. It took 5 minutes an then the machine would turn off.

They sent me a detailed analysis report that was very similar to the company as well as information about each type of mold they found. The outside control sample results were very close to the results of companies, so I felt for my personal needs, it did very well and was comparable to the professional company.

Since the results did not come clear, we had the air scrubbed and the entire house disinfected by a professional…which by the way did not advertise that he cleaned mold, he advertised “water damage cleanup” so look into those when searching for a professional.

Afterwards, I retested the entire house again to make sure his efforts worked. The results came back great!

By using the home testing kit, I paid the same amount for each sample, but saved the professional fee which saved us over $1,000.

Hope this helps!

Editor’s Note: See Disclaimer

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