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Validity of Cultures (settlement plates or swabs) to find toxic mold in buildings InspectAPedia®  -     Are indoor air quality "mold test kits" that rely on culture plates accurate? Advice on how to test or screen for problem mold indoors

This document provides information about the limited accuracy of mold cultures when used as "mold test kits" to examine indoor air quality as an investigation methodology in searching for possible causes of respiratory illness, asthma, immune system disorders, rashes, skin disease, psychological and neurological disorders, eye infections, or other symptoms which may have a physiological and environmental component. Also see Mold Culture Plate Test Errors.

Before you buy a "home test kit" for mold you should read this very article about the limitations of cultures, swabs, settlement plates. After reading this paper you may want to see our tape sampling procedures

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Problems With Relying on cultured mold samples to evaluate a building

Why don't we use readily-available mass-marketed cultures, settlement plates, and swab kits such as those available at the local hardware store? The underlying methodology is flawed if you're relying on the results of culturing to characterize just what problematic fungal spores are present in a building. Cultures, typically taken using settlement plates, Anderson-type samplers, and sterile swabs, can be quite unreliable as indicators of what's really present in an indoor environment. As an example, a dead spore in the air may be toxic but may not grow at all in a culture medium.

Use of cultures as building screens for the presence or absence problematic mold is unreliable - only 10% of all molds of any genera will grow on any culture under any circumstances, so a mold culture screening test for mold is 90% wrong at the outset. More so if one considers that certain molds that can be grown in culture only respond to specific culture media.

Even if a mold is grown on a culture, given these constraints one cannot reliably infer that the mold grown is the problem material in a building. Therefore no screening test by air or culture is an adequate substitute for nor superior to the value of a careful visual inspection by an experienced inspector who knows where mold is likely to grow and what it looks like on or in building surfaces and cavities.

Other serious flaws include inconsistent presence of problematic particles in building air, variations in particle settling rate out of air, variations in growth rates on different media of different mold species (fast growing spore A over-grows and hides the presence of slow growing spore B) and the fact that some problematic spores which could be hazardous to building occupants simply do not grow at all in the culture medium. There is indeed a valid place for cultures (air or swab) in the arsenal of building investigation tools (cross check on visual inspection and bulk sampling, cross check on clearance inspection and sampling, and elaboration of dormant particles).

Culture methods for fungal spore determination are an important tool, but these methods should not be relied-upon as the principal means for determining what problematic particles are in indoor air.

Relying on over-the-counter home test kits for mold to evaluate a building

Home test kits for mold are inexpensive, easily available, and easy to use. Therefore we wish we could say they could be an OK place to start, but we don't think this is the most accurate approach to screening a building for mold.

In a recent field experiment we used an over-the-counter "mold test kit" according to its instructions while we also performed a professional inspection of the building.

Among problems which our inspection discovered in the building the settlement-plate culture "toxic mold test kit" successfully found an Aspergillus sp. presence. It also found some nice Alternaria sp. spores, as well as the usual other collection of common Cladosporium species found in air.

What the mold test kit failed to find was what was probably making the occupants in the building sick. Our visual inspection identified various area of mold on surfaces and in the building cavities.

We collected bulk (tape) samples (as well as vacuum samples (such as vacuum samples of fiberglass building insulation) and we also collected some air samples used as a cross-check screen).

A strategic examination of these samples identified a very extensive Stachybotrys chartarum infection in the building, Penicillium, and an extensive Chaetomium globosum colony as well as the Aspergillus and the less troublesome Alternaria and its buddies.

The first two mold species are toxic, the last, allergenic. They were totally missed by the "test kit." Why did the home test kit for mold fail to find the actual problem in the building?

In addition to our bulk samples (which found the mold missed by the "home test kit") we also used two different types of air sampling machines as well as pulling some vacuum samples of suspect carpeting in an area which looked pretty clean.

Remarkably, our air samples confirmed the Stachybotrys chartarum presence, a spore not so easily found in air, despite the fact that we did nothing more than walk across a carpeted room during the test.

Mold spores may appear or fail to appear in an air test or "spore trap" for mold because of significant variations in particle disturbance during activity in the building, though there is a huge number of other factors which affect air and particle movement inside.

We provide more details about air movement in buildings at Introductory Comments on Air Movement in Buildings.

In this building the owner had begun a do-it-yourself demolition and repair of a water-damaged bathroom. Extensive mold contamination was on the exposed side of bathroom drywall and more extensive mold was growing on the cavity side of these walls.

As the owner used a hammer and hatchet to smash and remove drywall, considerable levels of airborne mold were produced - a condition probably more hazardous to the occupants than when the mold was simply growing on and in surfaces and cavities.

We are often able to spot a building where there has been a previous demolition of moldy materials by examining dust from remote surfaces. The actual exposure level of the building occupants to this mold is not something one can immediately infer from finding leftover traces in a building, but if professional containment and remediation measures were not followed, there is at least a risk that for a time the occupants may have been breathing some pretty moldy air.

In the case described here, the owner who performed the demolition developed a rather ugly skin rash that appeared to be mold-related, and which abated after a combination of treatment and some proper housecleaning.

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MOLD INFORMATION CENTER
ACCURACY OF VARIOUS MOLD TEST METHODS
  Causes of Variation in Airborne Particle Levels
  Indoor vs. Outdoor Spore Counts
  Extent of Variation of Airborne Particle Counts
  Particle Levels vs Sampler Height
  Particle Levels vs Windows/Doors
  Particle Levels in Ducts
  Concentration Bursts of Mold Spores
  False Negative Results in Mold Tests
  Mold Culture Plate Test Errors
  Why Use Airborne Mold/Particle Sampling?
  Visual Inspection and History for Mold
ACTION GUIDE - WHAT TO DO ABOUT INDOOR MOLD
ALLERGEN TESTS for BUILDINGS
ALLERGY TESTS for PEOPLE
ALLERGY TEST ACCURACY
CLEARANCE INSPECTIONS - MOLD CLEANUP
DO IT YOURSELF MOLD CLEANUP
ENERGY SAVINGS in BUILDINGS
ENERGY SAVINGS PRIORITIES
ENERGY SAVINGS RETROFIT CASE STUDY
ENERGY SAVINGS RETROFIT LEAK SEALING GUIDE
ENERGY SAVINGS RETROFIT OPTIONS
FIND MOLD in BUILDINGS, HOW TO
HIDDEN MOLD
INDOOR AIR QUALITY & HOUSE TIGHTNESS
INDOOR AIR QUALITY IMPROVEMENT GUIDE
INDOOR AIR QUALITY METHODS COMPARED
LEAD POISONING HAZARDS GUIDE
MOISTURE CONTROL in BUILDINGS
MOLD ACTION GUIDE - WHAT TO DO ABOUT MOLD
MOLD AGE - Old is the Mold?
MOLD APPEARANCE - WHAT MOLD LOOKS LIKE
MOLD APPEARANCE - STUFF THAT IS NOT MOLD
MOLD ATLAS & PARTICLES INDEX
MOLD BY MICROSCOPE
MOLD CLASSES, HAZARD LEVELS
MOLD CLEANUP GUIDE- HOW TO GET RID OF MOLD
MOLD CULTURE TEST KIT VALIDITY
  Cultured mold samples
  Mold test kits
  Test Validity Articles
MOLD REMEDIATION CLEARANCE INSPECTION
MOLD DETECTION & INSPECTION GUIDE

• Review more discussion of the Shortcomings of cultured mold samples - which lists a number of detailed concerns about viable spore traps and culture media for building problem detection
• Validity of air samples for mold and their interpretation is at our Air Sample Tutorial.
• Validity of Bulk Surface or Tape Sampling is at our Tape Sampling Tutorial

Books & Articles on Building & Environmental Inspection, Testing, Diagnosis, & Repair

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• Environmental Health & Investigation Bibliography - our own technical library on indoor air quality inspection, testing, laboratory procedures, forensic microscopy, etc.
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More Information on Building Diagnostic Inspections and Repairs

• Mold Classes: what types of cosmetic, allergenic, or toxic mold are a problem? Can mold be cleaned-up successfully?
• Mold Levels: How Much toxic or allergenic mold is Bad? counts in air or by visual inspection
• Mold Spore Counts: are indoor fungal spore counts valid?

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