How to Read a Mold Test Report

Spores are outside every day in Adams County, especially in late summer when the fields and trees are active. An indoor sample without an outdoor sample from the same visit cannot tell you whether the house is unusual. If your report has no outdoor control, ask why before you spend money on remediation you may not need.

We look at types, not just a single total. A house full of the same genera as the yard, at similar or lower levels, with dry walls, is a house that is exchanging air. A house with a water-damage genus elevated in one room, and a wet meter reading in that room, is a house with a source.

Labs flag numbers with colors and asterisks. Those flags are statistical habits, not legal limits. There is no Pennsylvania health-department number that says 700 spores per cubic meter means you must move out. Context does: where the sample was taken, whether the room was closed up, whether someone disturbed a closet before the pump ran.

A total count can be dominated by one outdoor-type spore that blew in when the door opened. Read the breakdown. If you do not understand it, that is our job to explain in the same meeting, not your job to decode at midnight.

It cannot see behind a closed wall we did not open or meter. It cannot tell you the leak started on a specific date. It cannot tell you that a species is 'toxic' to your child. Tape lifts tell you what is on a surface, which is useful when the surface is the question, and useless when the smell is in the crawl we have not entered.

Use the report to choose a next action: monitor humidity, clean a small area, open a wet wall, or fix a fan. A report that only says 'mold present' without a next action was not worth the cassette.