Mold Inspection & Testing in Richmond Hill

Your home needs to be a safe and healthy environment for you to live, work, and play in, which is why having a prompt mold removal in Richmond Hill whenever you suspect or find mold growing in your home is an important step in ensuring your indoor environment is safe for you and your family. Mold growth is a serious problem affecting many homes in the GTA - at MoldTech, our mission is to offer safe and professional mold removal in Richmond Hill and provide homeowners with the knowledge to prevent it from happening again. Mold can begin growing within 48 hours and can quickly spread throughout your home, making quick identification and remediation key to reducing the damage and impact that mold can have on your health.

How Do I Know It’s Mold?

Mold is a fascinating organism - part of over 200,000 different species of fungi that exist around the world, it has an important role to play in the ecosystem. But in your home mold growth isn’t helpful - it can cause severe damage or allergic reactions that can effect even the most robust members of your household. Mold thrives on the same organic materials we use to make and live in our homes, and the key to preventing these negative outcomes is to remove mold promptly when it is found.

Mold can wear a number of different guises. It can be furry or look like a stain; it can also be blue, black, green or tan, but the first sign that there is mold growth in your home is often a musty smell. Unlike a broken lightbulb, mold often doesn’t make its presence known visually, so smell and its health effects are often the only signs that people have to indicate there is mold growing within their homes. Having a professional mold removal in Richmond Hill with MoldTech means that a specialist will come to your home to identify and remove mold wherever it is found growing, whether that be out in the open or under carpets, behind wallpaper, or behind drywall.

Mold Growth and Your Health

The most important reason to have a mold removal in Richmond Hill is to ensure that your indoor environment isn’t causing you to become ill or isn’t exacerbating an existing illness. For those with conditions like asthma, bronchitis, or another respiratory disease, mold growth can seriously effect the outcomes of an attack or cause a relapse. Mold spreads throughout your home by spores, which travel throughout your home by air, and when these spores are breathed in, they irritate the mucous membranes and respiratory system. Even for healthy people, mold spores can cause sneezing, itchy watery eyes, and persistent headaches, and can make the experience of being in a room affected by mold intolerable. If you experience these symptoms while in specific rooms of your home, it might be worthwhile to take a closer look and have your home assessed for mold growth.

Where Will Mold Grow in my Home?

Unfortunately, mold can be found growing in any room in your home that has three key ingredients: moisture, temperature, and food. Mold needs something organic to eat, like paper, textiles, drywall, wood, or insulation, but most importantly, it needs water and a regular temperature to set up a colony, which is why we frequently find mold growing in spaces like the attic and the basement. Both are out of the way, where mold won’t be disturbed; they have a higher likelihood of drips or leaks going undetected, and they have relatively stable temperatures throughout the year.  These three elements can be found in other rooms throughout your home, but they occur more frequently at the top or bottom. Before every MoldTech mold removal in Richmond Hill, a qualified technician will come to assess your home, where they most often start in one of these two problem areas.

What are the Causes of Mold Growth?

There are a number of common causes of mold growth in Richmond hill homes. Many different environmental and physical factors can affect mold growth and the likelihood of whether or not your home will be affected, including weather, location, altitude, and more. But regardless of the exterior conditions of your home, the interior problems that can encourage mold growth remain the same, no matter where your home is situated.

• Moisture: The main culprit behind indoor mold growth is moisture, or water. Unchecked leaks, drips, a flood, or even just a few days of heavy rain can be a catalyst for mold growth indoors. Moisture indoors can come from a number of sources: sinks, the bath or shower, and laundry equipment are the most common places indoor moisture can come from - but unexpected sources of moisture, like floods, roof leaks, or burst pipes can also be problematic.
• Humidity: Water’s closest cousin is humidity - airborne moisture. Humidity can be created inside your home from cleaning, cooking, bathing, or water accidents. Humidity can make indoor living uncomfortable, but it also has a huge affect on mold growth, since mold thrives in a humid environment.
• Water accidents: Unfortunately, even the most well-looked-after home isn’t immune to accidents. Whether they’re caused by equipment failure, like a burst pipe or broken dishwasher, or a more serious weather event, like a major storm or flood, excess water indoors is a major cause of mold growth and should be quickly cleaned and dried up.

How Dangerous is Black Mold?

Out of the thousands of different kinds of molds present in the environment, there are a few that are truly dangerous to our health and wellness, and black mold is one of them. The most infamous type of black mold is Stachybotrys Chartarum, but there are number of different kinds of black mold, all of which are easily recognizable due to their deep green or black colouring.

Black mold thrives in areas of the home that have high humidity, like the laundry room or bathroom. Black mold is a particular health concern because many types of them have been shown to release airborne mycotoxins, which are then easily inhaled.

Because of these mycotoxins, black mold has a serious potential to cause long term health problems. Even in otherwise healthy people, short term exposure to black mold can cause irritation and aggravation to mucous membranes, and increase the severity of respiratory diseases.  

How to Prevent Mold Growth

The good news for homeowners is that there are a number of easy things you can do to prevent mold growth in your home.

• Use a dehumidifier: If you notice a part of your home has increased humidity or a moisture problem, running a humidifier is an easy way to reduce that airborne moisture.
• Keep your humidity low: In an average home, keep your humidity around 50% - this ensures that you’ll be comfortable and mold is prevented.
• Use paints with mold inhibitors: Are you repainting? Many modern paints come with mold inhibitors within the formulas. They can be an excellent way to add another layer of protection to your home.
• Fix drips and leaks: When you notice a drip, leak, or area where water collects, it’ll help in the long term to carefully investigate and stop any drips or leaks. Over time, even a single recurring drip can be the reason a mold infestation begins.
• Ventilate: Good air flow in the home is good for your health and one of the easiest ways to help prevent mold growth. Ventilating can be as simple as opening the windows when there’s a good breeze, but it can also mean running exhaust fans in rooms with high humidity, like the bathroom or kitchen. Those fans help to whisk humid air out of your home as soon as it forms.

Mold Removal 101

If you’ve found mold growing in your home or suspect that it may be, the best course of action is to contact a professional like MoldTech to perform your mold removal in Richmond Hill. Mold isn’t a DIY job - not only can it be dangerous to your health to stir up mold spores, it’s also very easy to contaminate the rest of your home during remediation, which creates bigger, more costly problems to solve.

With MoldTech, mold removal in Richmond Hill is treated with professionalism and a focus on health and safety. Before demolition work to remove affected walls, furniture, or other materials can start, the teams at MoldTech securely contain the work site and apply negative pressure and air tight barriers to prevent dust and particles from spreading through your home. Your safety as well as the safety of our teams are of extreme importance, so HEPA and other high-quality industrial air scrubbers are used to trap airborne particles.

Once contaminated objects have been removed from your home, clean up can begin. Over a decade of experience in mold removal in Richmond Hill means that we have perfected our cleaning techniques and have tried every solution on the market. MoldTech has stayed ahead of the curve by using the safest and best certified products on the market to ensure that we’ve removed every last spore. Unlike other companies which leave clean-up to the homeowner, MoldTech prides itself on our thorough cleaning - it may take us longer, but it ensures that you are left with a home that looks and smells fantastic.

Choose a Professional for your mold removal in Richmond Hill

Many home improvement books and websites suggest mold can be removed with household cleaning products, like bleach. At MoldTech, we recommend having your mold removal in Richmond Hill done by a professional to ensure that any mold is thoroughly and safely removed. The professional mold removal and remediation teams at MoldTech closely follow guidelines set out by local, provincial, and industry organizations that regulate the materials, solutions, and procedures for safe and through removal. One of the most difficult parts of mold removal can be finding contaminated site - using state of the art tools and technologies, the professionals at MoldTech can pinpoint mold growth without needing to make a mess of your home or walls.

The Benefits of Choosing MoldTech

At MoldTech, our goal is to utilize our extensive experience of residential and commercial mold removal and remediation to provide you with a thorough, high-quality mold removal in Richmond Hill. By choosing Moldtech, you benefit from over ten years of experience in the industry working with homeowners, insurance companies, realtors and engineers. The MoldTech team has an in-depth knowlege and understanding of mold removal in Richmond Hill that will give you the confidence that your questions and concerns are answered both honestly and thoroughly.

Our goal at MoldTech is to leave you with a healthier, safer home - if you are looking for mold removal in Richmond Hill, please get in touch with us at 1-866-684-7684.