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Nashville Home Inspection - Crawl Space Fungal Growth - What's Wrong With This Picture? 5/22/10

By Robert Dirienzo

Home Inspector with HABITEC Home and Building Inspections, LLC

May 22, 2010 02:00 PM

(Welcome to the HABITEC Blog at Activerain. If you are looking for the HABITEC website please click on http://habitecinspections.com. Thank you!)

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Now onto the blog: Nashville Home Inspection - Crawl Space Fungal Growth - What's Wrong With This Picture? 5/22/10

HINT: What's that white stuff on the wood?

Joist Mold

ANSWER: Microbial growth. Many people quickly call this mold, but without a lab analysis, we don't know for sure. A sample should be taken and sent for lab analysis. See the closeup of the material below.

Mold-Like Growth

Clearly something happened here to create this growth. For mold growth to occur, there must be excess moisture, a source of food (like wood), and a surface to grow on (like wood). Bingo, we get microbial growth. This should be treated seriously and removed if possible, treated with a fungicide if it cannot be removed.

Thank you,

Richard Acree

Comments in this blog posting are the copyrighted intellectual property of Richard Acree, President, HABITEC Home and Building Inspections, LLC, and contributing members of the Active Rain Real Estate network, and are intended to educate and otherwise assist home owners, sellers and buyers, building owners, sellers and buyers, realtors, real estate investors, property managers, and lenders in the process of owning, buying or selling homes or commercial buildings. HABITEC is a residential (home) and commercial building inspection company serving Middle Tennessee including Nashville, Brentwood, Franklin, Murfreesboro, Smyrna, Mt. Juliet, Hendersonville, Dickson, Belle Meade, Columbia, Spring Hill and more! In addition to building inspections HABITEC offers Environmental Services for mold assessments, radon testing and water quality analysis. Additional information about HABITEC can be found on our website at http://habitecinspections.com, or call 615-376-2753.

Richard Acree is the author of the HABITEC Home and Building Inspections Blog and founder of the ActiveRain Group Tennessee Home and Building Inspectors. All are welcome to join and see more blogs like this one.