Hear from Our Customers
You’ve noticed the musty smell. Maybe someone’s been coughing more than usual, or your kids wake up congested. You open windows when it’s warm enough, but that stuffy feeling never really goes away.
Here’s what changes after an indoor air quality check: you know exactly what’s in your air. Mold spores, allergens, pollutants – we test for all of it. You get a written report that makes sense, not pages of confusing lab data. And if something needs fixing, you’ll know what, where, and why.
Most importantly, you stop wondering if your home is making your family sick. That’s worth more than any number on a report.
We know Strawberry Mansion homes because we’ve been inside hundreds of them. The rowhouses built in the 1940s and earlier. The ones with basement moisture issues and old ventilation systems that barely move air.
We’re IICRC certified, which means we follow proper testing protocols and EPA guidelines. But what matters more is that we understand what you’re dealing with – limited budgets, landlords who don’t respond, and the very real concern that something in your home is affecting your family’s health.
We start every job with a free inspection. No pressure, no sales pitch. Just an honest assessment of what’s happening in your home and what it’ll take to fix it.
First, we come to your home and do a visual inspection. We’re looking for obvious signs of mold, water damage, or ventilation problems. We check basements, bathrooms, kitchens – anywhere moisture tends to collect in older homes.
Then we take air samples from different rooms. These samples go to a certified lab that analyzes them for mold spores, allergens, and other airborne pollutants. If we see visible mold or suspect hidden growth behind walls, we might also take surface samples.
You get results in 24-48 hours. We walk you through the report in plain language – what we found, what the levels mean, and whether you need remediation. If your air quality is fine, we’ll tell you that too. If there’s a problem, we explain your options and give you a clear estimate before any work starts.
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Your indoor air quality check covers mold spores, common allergens, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). We test multiple rooms because air quality varies throughout your home – your basement might have issues your bedroom doesn’t.
In Strawberry Mansion, where 47% of homes were built before 1940, we pay special attention to common problem areas in older housing. Poor ventilation, aging plumbing, and outdated HVAC systems all contribute to air quality issues. Philadelphia’s humid climate makes it worse – moisture gets trapped in these older structures and creates perfect conditions for mold growth.
You receive a detailed written report that documents everything we found. This matters if you’re dealing with insurance claims or trying to get your landlord to take action. We also provide clear recommendations – sometimes it’s as simple as improving ventilation, other times you need professional mold remediation. Either way, you’ll know exactly where you stand and what healthy indoor air looks like for your specific home.
A basic indoor air quality check typically runs between $300-$500 for a standard rowhouse, depending on how many rooms you want tested and what specific pollutants you’re concerned about. Testing just for mold is usually on the lower end. If you want a comprehensive analysis that includes allergens, VOCs, and other airborne contaminants, expect to pay closer to $500.
We offer free initial inspections, which means we come to your home, assess the situation, and give you an upfront estimate before you spend anything. If you have insurance and there’s documented water damage or a covered event, your policy might cover testing costs. We work directly with insurance companies and help with the paperwork.
Payment plans are available if you need them. We’d rather you get the testing done now than wait until a small problem becomes a major health issue or an expensive remediation job.
Lab results come back in 24-48 hours after we collect samples. That’s actual lab processing time – the whole process from scheduling to getting your report usually takes 3-5 days total.
Here’s the timeline: We schedule your inspection, usually within a day or two of your call. The inspection and sample collection takes about an hour. Samples go to the lab that same day. Once results are back, we review them and prepare your report with clear explanations and recommendations.
If you’re dealing with urgent health symptoms or need results quickly for an insurance claim, let us know when you call. We can often expedite the process. Some situations need immediate attention – if someone in your home is having severe respiratory issues or you’ve had major water damage, we treat that as a priority.
Persistent musty odors are the biggest red flag, especially in basements or bathrooms. If you smell it, something’s growing – usually mold. You might not see it because it’s behind walls, under flooring, or in your HVAC system.
Unexplained health symptoms are another clear sign. Family members who cough, sneeze, or wake up congested more at home than anywhere else. Headaches that improve when you leave the house. Allergy symptoms that never quite go away. Kids and elderly family members usually show symptoms first because they’re more sensitive to poor air quality.
Water damage, even old water damage, almost always leads to mold growth in Philadelphia’s humid climate. If you’ve had leaks, flooding, or even just persistent condensation on windows, you likely have mold somewhere. Visible mold on walls or ceilings means you definitely have a problem – but what you see is usually just a small part of what’s actually there. Testing shows you the full scope.
Home test kits exist, but they’re not reliable. Most drugstore kits only tell you if mold is present – which isn’t useful because mold spores exist in every home. What matters is the type of mold and the concentration levels. You need lab analysis to know if you’re dealing with toxic black mold or just normal environmental mold that’s not a health risk.
Professional testing uses calibrated equipment and follows specific protocols for sample collection. We know where to test, how long to run air samples, and how to avoid contamination that skews results. The samples go to certified labs that can identify specific mold species and measure spore counts accurately.
More importantly, professional mold inspection services include interpretation. A lab report full of scientific names and numbers doesn’t help you if you don’t know what it means. We explain what we found, whether it’s dangerous, and what you should do about it. That context is what you’re really paying for – not just data, but answers.
No. Air quality testing is non-invasive. We use portable air pumps that collect samples over a set time period – usually 5-10 minutes per room. The equipment is quiet and doesn’t disturb your daily routine. If you have young kids, they can stay home during testing. No harmful chemicals, no drilling holes, no mess to clean up afterward.
Surface testing involves swabbing visible mold or suspicious areas with what looks like a large Q-tip. Again, completely non-invasive. The only time we’d need to access behind walls is if we’re doing a full mold inspection after finding elevated spore counts in your air test. Even then, we’d discuss it with you first and get your approval before opening anything up.
The whole process takes about an hour for a typical Strawberry Mansion rowhouse. We move through your home systematically, take our samples, answer your questions, and leave. Your home looks exactly the same as when we arrived. You just wait a couple days for results, then we walk you through what we found.
Yes. Professional air quality testing gives you documented proof of a problem. Landlords can ignore complaints about smells or dismiss health concerns, but they can’t ignore a lab report showing dangerous mold levels in a rental property. In Pennsylvania, landlords are legally required to maintain habitable living conditions – that includes healthy indoor air.
Your written report includes specific mold species identified, spore count levels, and where samples were collected. This documentation is critical if you need to involve the health department or pursue legal action. It also helps if you’re trying to break a lease due to uninhabitable conditions.
We’ve worked with many renters in Strawberry Mansion dealing with unresponsive property owners. Our reports are thorough enough to satisfy insurance companies, housing inspectors, and courts if it comes to that. We can also provide recommendations for remediation that give your landlord a clear path to fixing the problem. Sometimes landlords just don’t know what to do – giving them a professional assessment and solution makes it easier for them to take action.
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