Buying or Building a New Home?
As anyone who has recently bought a home knows quite well, it involves numerous appointments, multiple inspections and mountains of paperwork. But while a general inspection of the home is usually required as part of the process, not all homes are specifically checked for mold. This is because home inspectors do not tend to be mold specialists and they do not typically have the training necessary to spot potentially serious issues.
Whether you are in the process of buying or building your dream home, you should definitely schedule a thorough mold inspection in addition to your regular home inspection.
If you are thinking to yourself “I can’t see any mold, so why should I pay for an additional mold inspection?” you have actually identified why it’s so important to have one. Mold doesn’t always readily show itself in a home. It can live in vents and pipes and there can be plumbing leaks in the walls that provide a lovely home for toxic mold to grow. Even new home construction may have potential mold issues; for example, if the ground slopes towards the home on one side, or if some of the plumbing was not installed correctly and it has developed a slow leak.
While a regular home inspector will probably point out some probable signs of water leak—for example, holes in the roof, a musty smell in the basement or attic, and/or water stains on the ceiling, he or she will typically not go one step further and determine if mold is present. Since the presence of mold will make the home virtually impossible to live in for awhile, it’s vital that you determine that the residence is mold-free before signing the closing papers.
Unfortunately, the news is filled with sad stories of people who spent their life savings on new homes, only to discover after the fact that they are breeding grounds for toxic black mold. Typically, insurance will not cover the problem and backing out of a mortgage is very difficult.
Before you become official homeowners, give New England Remediation Services a call and schedule a certified mold inspection service. At NERS we are Certified Mold Inspectors (CMI) and Certified Residential Mold Inspectors (CRMI) who are licensed for the identification and removal of mold for New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont.
If we discover visible mold in the home, we will provide a free estimate to have it removed. If we suspect that there is mold hidden somewhere in the home, we will find and test for the problem for a reasonable fee. Once the source of the mold has been found, we will propose the appropriate remediation service, which “homeowners to be” may choose to do, or they may decide to walk away from the property.
