SOME BENEFITS AND DRAW BACKS OF HOME AIR TEST KITS
the most common home mold test kits consists of Petri dishes filled with a nutritious growth media known as Malt Extract Agar or MEA. The growth media contains carbohydrates and other nutrients, moisture, and bacterial growth inhibitors to prevent bacteria from crowding out any mold that may grow on the media. These kits can be found at many local building supply stores such as home depot.
The dish is opened and set in your home for a predetermined amount of time allowing spores to settle on the plate. Depending on how much you want to spend you may examining it yourself for the presence or absence of mold after a few days, or you may send it back to the laboratory for analysis to determine the type of mold found.
Other mold test kits include a swab that is used to rub against suspected fungal growth. Depending on the chemistry of the material you are testing a color change may occur, if the substance was mold then the kits color change is suppose to indicate that the substance was in fact mold. As a mold inspector I can tell you that if the substance looks like mold and is in a water damaged area it is most likely mold.
Other test kits involve the use of tape pressed against a moldy surface, the tape is later mailed to the laboratory for confirmation of the presence of mold and identification of the types of mold present on the tape strip if any. Though the use of tape sounds unprofessional or non scientific, it is in fact a heavily relied on method of sampling mold and is quite effective.
All the above tests have a few serious drawbacks.
1) Such tests can tell you if you have mold, and can help identify the type to the genus level, but such methods cannot typically tell you if the amount you have is at normal or abnormal levels. Though any amount of some molds such as Chaetomium or Stachybotrys also known as toxic black mold would be unusual and a concern indoor, other mold such as many species of Cladosporium and Pen Asp are not so unusual in home or office setting air.
2) Unfortunately some people may not interpret the results properly, for example if mold is found in a petri dish and its identify is provided by lab analysis one home owner may look at the report and panic even if the types and amounts of mold were normal.
3) Another person may be inclined to have a false since of security when sampling mold, for example if mold on a tape sample is identified by the lab but is in not toxic black mold then some homeowners may think that it is not a serious problem when in fact the entire interior of the wall may be infested with unhealthy mold and moisture issues that can cause problems for years to come. Neither the surface sample, nor the lab would be able to give any indication of the true severity of the problem.
Better alternatives are available.
