BY DAVID MYRICK, OWNER
This article is sort of a follow-up to a previous article I wrote on Air Filtration Devices (AFD). You can read that one here: How Most Mold Remediators Botch Air Pressure.
That article focused on when to run an AFD as a Negative Air Machine (NAM) and when to run it as an air scrubber. This one exposes a simple yet effective sales trick that shady companies in NOVA, Central VA, Southern MD, and Washington DC use to drain more money out of you.
There are two components to this sales trick…
Let’s break these components down one at a time…
During the initial appointment, a company may make a big deal about how they use “commercial” air scrubbers. They do this to convince you that they use the biggest and baddest equipment.
Here’s the reality: Except for the REALLY cheap guys you find on Craigslist, just about every mold remediator uses industrial-strength air scrubbers.
The use of the term “commercial” is just a word game. It sounds impressive… which is precisely the point!
Imagine a doctor boasting that she uses professional-grade medical equipment. Your reaction wouldn’t be, “Wow, that’s awesome.” It would be, “Well, I’d hope so!”
Treat remediators that tout their “commercial” air scrubbers the same.
The second part of the sales trick is to talk about running the air scrubber for 48 to 72 hours after remediation.
Again, the idea is to impress you with how long they let the machine filter the air. After all… the longer it runs, the cleaner the air, right?
Wrong.
Running an air scrubber for this long is wholly unnecessary—and a waste of your money.
Here’s why…
Most quality mold testers like to test remediation jobs after the Air Scrubber completes 8 to 12 air-change cycles. (In plain English, that means how many times the Air Scrubber filters all of the air in a contained area.) Research proves this number of cycles makes the air as clean as it can get.
If the Air Scrubber is sized appropriately to the containment area, it can accomplish these 8 to 12 air-change cycles in 2 hours or less… a far cry from that 48-72 hours some companies run them for.
Let’s say we’re doing a job in your hall bathroom. And let’s assume this bathroom is 5’ long by 3’ wide by 8’ tall, which makes it 120 cubic feet (5x3x8=120).
The smallest Air Scrubber in the Valor Mold arsenal filters 750 cubic feet of air per minute (called CFM). If we use this Air Scrubber in your 120 cubic-foot bathroom, it will filter all the air in the room 6.25 times per minute (750 CFM divided by 120 CF = 6.25).
That’s a complete air-change cycle about every 10 seconds. So after only 2 minutes, we’ve accomplished the 8-12 air-change cycles we need for a mold test.
Not convinced? Take a 10x10x8 bedroom, which is 800 cubic feet. The same air scrubber would do an air change every 64 seconds (750 divided by 800 = 0.93). So after 13 minutes, the machine has done 12 air changes.
If we ran our machine in your 120 cubic-foot bathroom for 48 hours, it would complete 18,000 air changes. If we ran it for 72 hours, and it would complete 27,000 air changes.
There is absolutely no benefit to this many air changes. It would be like washing your hands for 24 straight hours. Or cleaning the same dishes in the dishwasher 54 times in a row. In other words, pure overkill.
As I mentioned, it sounds impressive. But that’s not the only reason.
Mold companies charge you a daily rental fee as long as the air scrubber is in your home. For them, it’s the dictionary definition of easy money.
Since you love my math-heavy examples so much (you do, right?), let’s do one to see how much free money a remediator can make off these fees.
Let’s assume the mold company charges a $150 daily fee and one AFD goes on 80 jobs per year. They leave their air scrubbers running on each project for 48 to 72 hours.
That works out to $24,000 to $36,000 per year… and the company doesn’t have to lift a finger.
Not a bad deal!
If you want a mold remediator that deals in straight facts—sans the hype—get in touch. We’re the kind of company that specializes in Open-Book Honesty and will remove your mold the RIGHT way.
We serve Northern VA, Central VA, Washington DC, and Southern MD. We would be honored to hear from you.
We remove mold the right way… and it would be an honor to hear from you.
Your home is in the best hands—our chemical-free remediation has the highest success rate in the industry.
You get the answers you need—our special mold testing provides 99% accurate results on the spot.
You can trust our process—we’ve performed over 300 successful projects since we opened in 2006.
Fill out this form to contact us. We’ll follow up with 24 business hours.
Valor Mold Removal is a certified and experienced mold testing and remediation company. We are fully insured and fully licensed. We also provide crawl space encapsulation, soda blasting, humidity control, and air quality cleaning.
