Effective Mould Surface Testing.
Mould surface testing delivers precise data. This data empowers you to make informed decisions about resource allocation. It saves both time and money while minimising disruption.
What Is Surface Sampling and Testing?
Surface Sampling and Testing: An Overview
Why surface sampling is important.
Maintaining detailed, thorough, and comprehensive records of mould cleaning or remediation processes is absolutely essential, with mould surface testing playing a crucial, vital, and indispensable role in accurately confirming the success and effectiveness of these efforts.
Surface testing is especially important because it directly examines the actual presence of mould spores, hyphae, and fragments on affected surfaces, offering clear, concrete, and undeniable evidence of whether both visible and hidden mould growth has been effectively and completely removed.
Unlike other methods, surface testing delivers immediate, specific, and highly localised results from targeted areas, making it far more precise, accurate, and reliable than general air sampling, which can be influenced by various external factors and may easily miss mould that has settled on surfaces.
This focused and targeted approach ensures thorough and complete mould remediation, significantly reducing health risks and avoiding wasted time, effort, and resources on incomplete or ineffective treatment plans. For a truly comprehensive evaluation, surface testing can be effectively supplemented with air sampling and testing when additional verification is required.
The Surface Sampling and Testing system we use is a robust having been meticulously developed for over a decade in partnership with mould remediation consultants, contractors, and the Danish Building Research Institute. This method has consistently demonstrated its effectiveness and value.
The results are categorised empirically into three distinct classifications: clean, dirty, and contaminated. A ‘clean’ status signifies a background level typically found on visually clean surfaces in well-maintained buildings devoid of mould and moisture issues. ‘Contaminated’, on the other hand, refers to samples that contain mould concentrations exceeding those found on dusty and dirty surfaces in similar well-maintained buildings.
The results are delivered rapidly, ensuring you receive timely and efficient feedback. Our streamlined process prioritises speed without compromising accuracy, allowing you to make informed decisions quickly. This quick turnaround supports urgent needs and helps maintain continuous progress in your projects or health assessments.
Mould is not always obvious, especially in porous materials. Protocols have been established to measure mould contamination within porous materials. These materials, which include insulation materials, cement-based materials (such as concrete, plaster, and mortar), and other porous materials commonly found in buildings, can harbour mould growth deep within.
On-site surface sampling with swabs
Surface samples can be collected by in house staff or DLO
Mould surface testing can be efficiently carried out by in-house operatives who are trained to collect samples using sterile swabs. The process involves carefully swabbing the suspected mould-affected areas to gather potential mould spores and residues. Once the swabs are collected, they are securely packaged and sent to Buildnostics for professional laboratory analysis.
Buildnostics then examines the samples to identify the types and concentrations of mould present, providing detailed reports that help inform appropriate remediation strategies. This approach allows for timely and accurate mould assessment, leveraging the convenience of on-site sampling combined with expert laboratory evaluation.
Effective Surface Sampling
Porous building materials
We have found that visual assessment was inadequate for evaluating insulation material. Sometimes insulation material that looks clean may contain high levels of mould growth while dirty-looking materials do not. Depending upon the materials tested, bulk sampling allows for the testing of the materials directly without swabbing.
Accurate and repeatable
The Mycometer technology has been utilised daily for more than 15 years by consultants and contractors in tens of thousands of mould remediation projects. In 2011 the technology was verified by the US-EPA
(US-Environmental Protection Agency). The interpretation criteria are in accordance with those from WHO, and US-EPA.
Easy-to-understand results
Data has been collected from hundreds of samples to establish the interpretation criteria. These categories of surface contamination were developed as a result of testing performed in collaboration with the Danish Building Research Institute and the Technical University of Denmark to provide easy-to-understand results.
Contact Us
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