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This article describes How to Recognize & Diagnose Stains at Heating or Air Conditioning Supply Registers and explains how to distinguish these common debris marks from possibly more serious mold, thermal tracking, thermal bridging stains, building air leaks, and building insulation defects. When investigating a building for a mold problem, you can save mold test costs by learning how to recognize Stuff that is Not Mold or is only Harmless Mold but may be mistaken for more serious contamination - save your money.

These stains and marks are often substances that you can easily learn to recognize in buildings. Save your mold test money, and increase the accuracy of your mold contamination inspection or test for toxic or allergenic mold in buildings: review these items to learn recognize non-fungal materials or even possibly harmless cosmetic "black mold" often mistaken for "toxic fungal growth." Readers should see HEAT LOSS in BUILDINGS. Also see AIR SEALING STRATEGIES and AIR LEAK DETECTION TOOLS as well as AIR LEAK MINIMIZATION. For photos of snow melt on rooftops that also show points of building heat transfer and loss, see STAIN DIAGNOSIS on Building Exteriors.

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Dark stains on building interior walls may appear in other patterns and could be from other causes - we provide photographs, description, diagnosis, and advice for many of these indoor stains in this article.

How to Diagnose Stains and Debris at Ceiling and Wall Heating or Cooling Air Supply Registers

We welcome more thermal tracking, soot tracking, air bypass leaks, and similar photos of indoor stains as well as text suggestions to expand this detail and would be glad to credit contributors.

Thermal tracking on a wall above a hot water heating baseboard is shown at Wall Thermal Tracking Stains. See Other Stains on Indoor Walls & Ceilings for further discussion of this photograph and for additional photos and examples of stains on building surfaces that are caused by problems with building heating or air conditioning systems or from other sources.

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• Thanks to Alan Carson, Carson Dunlop, Associates, Toronto, for technical critique and content suggestions regarding thermal tracking.

More Information on Building Diagnostic Inspections and Repairs

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The Mold Information Center: What to Do About Mold in Buildings, When and How to Inspect for Mold, Clean Up Mold, or Avoid Mold Problems

Use this simple, economical mold test kit by following our instructions on how to collect and mail mold samples to our lab

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