Remodel: The Mold Remediation

The Village Building Inspector returned my call early this morning. He told me that there was nothing that he could do, as Building Inspector (ie: refuse to pass the project, etc.) since mold legislation is so new in the state. However, he told me that if he were me, he'd definitely contact a Mold Remediation professional to determine just how bad of a situation we had.

While I was on the phone, the workers showed up to do the cleaning. They lifted boards, but when they saw the mold, they balked. In addition, the person at the mold center said that a square foot of mold can contain a billion mold spores and you don't want to disturb them. yikes!

The mold specialist came and looked at what we have, and said (in not-specificic terms) that we don't have a BAD mold problem, but that it needs to be sprayed (to kill), cleaned, and treated with a substance that kills the mold there and inhibits regrowth. His estimate was $1100. I thought for sure our contractor would balk (as he'd thought he could do the same thing for about $300) but he said to go ahead and do it. The one thing that the mold people have, that our contractor doesn't, and couldn't get, is a negative air filter, which will suck all the mold spores, etc. OUT of the house instead of blowing them INTO the house.

So they are coming on Wednesday morning to treat our upstairs. In the meantime, we need to get things as dry as possible. The spray that they use should dry for a day or more, so the workers will come back probably on Friday and replace floor boards so that our carpet can be installed next week.

The other thing that our contractor pointed out (AFTER he signed the paperwork to do the mold removal) is a section of our contract that reads:

"If the project, or any portion of it, is destroyed or damaged by fire, storm, flood, landslide, earthquake, theft, or other disasters or accidents, any work done by Contractor to rebuild, etc. shall be paid for by the Homeowner as an Extra and dealt with as herein provided, for under "Extra Work"."

Which essentially says that our contractor is doing this because he's a good, honest guy--not because he has to.

Oh, the things I've learned from this project!