Minneapolis group sets the standard in mold fight

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Minneapolis group sets the standard in mold fight

With claims for mold-related damages growing across the country, a Minneapolis group has developed a new inspection standard to help head off the problem.

By /F & C Staff WriterJune 18, 2003

Responding to growing concerns nationally about household mold, a new Minneapolis-based nonprofit group is fighting back with the industry’s first inspection standard.

The Indoor Environmental Standards Organization (IESO) is providing mold-related training, certification programs and technical information for home inspectors, real estate agents and others who are concerned about household mold.

Wesloh, executive director of the organization, said experts from a variety of industries — including home inspection, industrial hygiene, insurance and law — developed and approved the standards.

"There's nothing else like it out there at all," said Fetveit, IESO's president and the executive vice president of Arizona-based Aerotech Laboratories.

Nationally, mold has become a major issue in the housing and construction industries in recent years, prompting articles, books and even a mold-litigation magazine. The New York-based National Law Journal said this month that mold damages against home insurers exceeded $1 billion in 2001. In Texas alone — one of the hardest hit states — the insurance industry says that claims for mold-related household damages climbed from $14.4 million in the first quarter of 2000 to $187.5 million at the end of 2001.

Besides damaging houses, mold has been associated with illnesses ranging from hay fever symptoms to memory loss and has been the basis for a number of high-profile lawsuits.

Tony McFarland, a mold inspector and owner of Anoka-based Mold Masters, said home inspectors have been "thrown into the fray" when it comes to mold and other biological contaminants. On top of everything they've traditionally looked for, now they're expected to detect signs of mold as well, he said.

"Unless you've got some good background and training, you're not 100 percent sure what you're looking at," McFarland said. "There aren't enough inspectors, and we're at the tip of an iceberg right now. It's going to escalate, and it's going to escalate fast."

The IESO, which has 362 members in the United States and Canada, trains home inspectors to become "certified residential mold inspectors." Inspectors who successfully complete a two-day training course and pass a CRMI exam are eligible to be certified.

Fetveit said the standards are limited in scope. Under the standards, which apply only to residential dwellings, inspectors are trained to look for conditions that could lead to mold, to take mold samples and to send the samples to an accredited laboratory for further study.

"If they follow the standard, they're not to be writing remediation specs [or saying], 'This is what I found, you need to tear these walls out,'" Fetveit said. "That's certainly not a liability that most home inspectors would want to take on."

The IESO was founded last year by two organizations that deal with household mold — Aerotech Laboratories and land-based Building Specs. Aerotech is one of the world's largest indoor air quality laboratories, while Building Specs specializes in home inspections.

Minneapolis-based the Harrington Company, which provides professional association management services, helped the companies form the nonprofit organization.

As mold made its way into the national consciousness, a number of companies — including laboratories, remediators and inspectors — jumped into the "mold business." Some were following unethical business practices, Fetveit noted, and that was part of the reason for forming a nonprofit organization to address mold problems.

"We wanted to be able to create an organization and a forum where the true industry leaders could all get involved and kind of set themselves apart from the riff-raff," Fetveit said.

The organization is also dealing with increasing government intervention in mold issues. The IESO is tracking more than 65 mold-related bills in 30 states (none in Minnesota), including legislation that deals with insurance issues, licensing and regulation.

Texas Gov. Rick , for example, recently signed legislation that requires mold remediators and inspectors to be licensed and prevents repaired mold claims from affecting insurance underwriting.

As more states and agencies require licensure, demand will increase for mold-related training and certification. Moreover, Fetveit anticipates that lenders or insurance companies may increasingly require mold inspections for some real estate transactions.

"Those are some potential directions that the industry might go," he said. "That's kind of what we're planning for."

Fetveit said the IESO is also encouraging real estate agents and homebuyers to request mold inspections. A directory of certified inspectors is available on the organization's Web site — www.iestandards.org.