Q: In my condo community there was water damage and mold in a garage after a leak above. The remediation report recommends wipe-down, containment, and negative pressure air filtration, even though the garage is not directly accessible to any of the residences. My question is, could the mold be remediated with the garage doors open, so as to dispense with the cost of all the wipe-down, containment, and filtration?

A: Your question does not describe how much mold is present, so we will assume it is more that 32 square feet (4 x 8 sheet of drywall). Certainly common sense tells us that the mold could probably be removed with the garage door open. This would eliminate the cost of wipe-down, containment, filtration, and all the personal protective equipment that workers would need to wear. Remediation costs would certainly come down. And if you aren't concerned with how much airborne mold settles on the other (unaffected) portions of the garage during the wipe-down, or how much floats into nearby condo windows, then your contractor won't be concerned either.

Using your scenario, there wouldn't really be a need to test for mold after the "wipe-down" was complete. Just seeing that the mold was gone could be a way to say it's been resolved. But without some kind of remediation standard, what level of work would you hold the contractor to? He could just claim that any mold present - after he supposedly finished his work - had just drifted in with the morning's breezes.

There is a specific purpose for containment and negative pressure when doing a mold remediation project. It is to protect the health and safety of the workers (those in the containment) and those in surrounding areas (condo owners or others who might pass through the garage area). That's not to imply that the molds found in every contamination are going to make people sick. But the dust, debris, and airborne mold and bacteria certainly could affect workers who do not use personal protective equipment, or occupants (condo-owners) who happen to pass near the work area. In addition, there is a very large percentage of the population who is hypersensitive or suffers from allergies and asthma. These people would certainly react if they came near remediation activities that weren't properly contained. So it appears that some level of "contamination control" is going to be required to make sure you aren't sued.

Common sense does not dictate what can and cannot be done when dealing with mold. The courts do! A majority of the legal cases that I have reviewed as an expert witness have been raised because of health issues. In some cases, occupant health was affected by the contamination, and the insurance company or consultant did not stipulate that all of the contamination needed to be removed. In other instances, lawsuits were filed because the remediation was done improperly (leaving contamination) or because containment (control) barriers failed, and occupants reacted to exposure.

If your mold contaminated garage is in the middle of a field that's seldom visited by anyone but the primary owner, and there is a strong breeze that's guaranteed to remove dust and spores from the "wipe-down" then I'd say go ahead and try it. But you'll likely wind up doing all of the work yourself. Anyone aware of the potential health effects of damaged drywall, wood debris or dust, or airborne mold and bacteria, will surely insist for some level of contaminant control or personal protective equipment.

Travis West

Travis West is the president of Building Air Quality Inc., a Houston-based indoor air quality consulting firm. He can be reached at twest@baq1.com, or toll-free at 866-367-1177. )

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