'Hysteria' over mold growth is boon to air-quality firms

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http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2002/08/19/focus8.html

August 16, 2002

'Hysteria' over mold growth is boon to air-quality firms

But some in the industry maintain that concern is almost always unneeded

Goodspeed Special To The Journal

What some have termed national hysteria over mold has prompted a rapid

growth in the air-quality industry - growth that not all feel is necessarily

good or even warranted.

" A lot of people are profiting by instilling panic in the marketplace about

mold, " said ph Lstiburek, president of Building Science Corp. in

Westford, a building-analysis company. " Mold is gold. Unfortunately,

people's panic and fear about mold in almost all cases is not warranted. "

Nevertheless, that panic is fueling a boom in all segments of the

air-quality business, from testing to remediation to litigation. In recent

months there have been several large insurance settlements and media stories

about those settlements and the potential health and structural hazards of

mold. There are some 14,000 mold claims pending in Texas alone.

Many blame the near epidemic proportions of childhood asthma on mold, even

though there is no medical evidence linking mold to serious health problems.

All that interest in mold is creating a boom for the air-quality industry.

Lstiburek's business, which investigates the source of air-quality problems

in buildings, has quadrupled over the last several years due mainly to mold.

Envirotech Clean Air Inc. of Stoneham, an air-quality remediation company,

has doubled in size in just the last year alone to nearly $7 million in

revenue - again, due mainly to mold.

" Mold is really taking off, " said Dan Greenblatt, president of Envirotech.

Indoor air quality has actually been eroding for several years, long before

the current national obsession with mold, said Jack McCarthy, president of

Environmental Health Engineering in Newton.

" Changing building practices have made our buildings much more complex and

less environmentally forgiving, " McCarthy said.

The push to make buildings more energy-efficient, for example, has made them

tighter but reduced air ventilation and circulation.

" With the new windows in high-rise buildings, there is less air penetration

and more demand on the mechanical system to work properly, " McCarthy said.

Likewise, the growing use of synthetic building materials and softer

materials like carpet have also compromised air quality.

" We even changed the way we worked, " McCarthy said. " We have a lot more open

offices so what is occurring in one part of the office impacts many other

parts. "

Environmental Health Engineering investigates air-quality issues in

buildings. Often an investigation is triggered by employee complaints and

symptoms.

" The most important first step is to get a handle on people's symptoms, "

McCarthy said.

The company brings in a medical team to interview employees and then begins

testing the building to find the source of the complaints. The company has

traced problems back to improper air pressure in the building, poor air

circulation, leaking insulation, diesel fumes from a loading dock, even

carpet shampoos.

" In one case, we tracked the problem back to a laser printer not working

properly, " McCarthy said.

Once a problem is identified, a remediation team is hired to clean the

building and engineers to fix the source of the problem. In the last 15

years, the company has grown from two to more than 70 employees. The current

attention being focused on mold is creating a huge demand for air-quality

testing.

Lstiburek says many of these so-called mold tests do more harm than good.

" There is no baseline for these tests, " he said. " There is a little bit of

mold everywhere. We evolved with it. But now people are using these little

devices that suck in the air and say you have an elevated mold count.

Compared to what? There's no baseline. If you see mold or smell mold then

you should be concerned about it and it should be cleaned up. "

But before mold can be cleaned up, its source - the moisture causing its

growth- needs to be identified and eliminated.

" You need to follow the mold back to the source of the moisture, " Greenblatt

said.

The moisture source might be a leaky toilet, faucet, groundwater seeping

through the foundation, clogged eaves troughs, missing window well or an

improperly vented dryer. Once the source of the moisture is eliminated or

fixed, cleaning up the mold can begin.

Greenblatt said mold remediation is a two-step process: " Remove, remove,

remove; clean, clean, clean. "

Once the contaminated area is contained, all the porous material and " mold

food " - carpet, wallboard, cardboard, even furniture - must be removed. The

area is then thoroughly cleaned and wiped with a bleach solution.

" You have to actually remove the mold spores, " Greenblatt said. " That's why

you can't just spray it. Mold spores are living organisms and multiply very

quickly. You talk about rabbits multiplying, mold has it all over rabbits.

I've seen mold go from nothing to big spots on the wall in 48 hours. "

Copyright 2002 American City Business Journals Inc.