SERVPRO - Finding Mold Damage in Knoxville
2/23/2018 (Permalink)
When mold damage strikes your Knoxville home, SERVPRO strikes back.
Knoxville residents have seen a lot of floods and other water damage this year. Every home affected has different needs when it comes to restoration, and if it is not done quickly enough, many of them also wind up with a mold issue.
Restoring a home in Knoxville after mold damage requires a professional service, just like after a major storm system dropped thousands of gallons of water on and into a home. SERVPRO has the restoration experience to know that mold is just as damaging and costly as other disasters. To deal with it properly, we ask the homeowners a set of questions before we even begin our initial inspection.
“Why do you think you have mold?” – The usual answer is that they can smell it or see it. Not every mold strain gives off the usual musty odor though. Spotting a streak of mold across ceiling tiles or along the floor trim gives us a single location, but not necessarily the point of origin. To get that, our inspector can use an air content meter to trace the mold back to where the spores first expanded.
“Have you had mold problems before?” – If the homeowner answers yes, that gives us our first location to examine. Common areas where mold growth is a recurring threat are places with high humidity and a greater chance of leaks such as attics, basements, bathrooms, and kitchens.
“When did it start?” – This answer helps identify the extent of the growth. It takes more than just a few days for mold to grow into a visible problem. If the homeowner tells us that he just saw mold under a sink, then it is very likely the spores started behind the sink, in another room; possibly even the attic or basement.
The answers to these questions mean that SERVPRO technicians need to remove sink cabinets and probably at least one or two sections of drywall behind them to trace the mold and the leak or another source of water. Depending on how long the mold was growing, cleaning and remediation can take a few days to several weeks.
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Restoring your home is not a quick process, but asking the right questions can save not just days and weeks, but hundreds of dollars in costs as well. If you have a question or to schedule an inspection, contact SERVPRO of Rocky Hill / Sequoyah Hills / South Knoxville at (865) 862-8907 today.
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