John Riera
Michelle Riera
Johnny Riera
Laura Riera
Quality customer service is our primary goal.
American Air Testing is a small, local family business of indoor environmental professionals who are qualified by knowledge, skill, education, training, certifications and experience.
Our team is able to perform assessments of the condition of structures, systems, and contents at a job site, create a sampling strategy, sample the indoor environment, including outside baselines, and submit samples to an appropriate laboratories. Laboratory results are reviewed and interpreted, along with the onsite inspection information, for the purpose of establishing an abatement/remediation protocol to return of the job site to a healthy indoor air environment.
With current industry standard knowledge and equipment, we provide consulting and testing of indoor air contamination for a wide variety of contaminants:
- Allergens in Dust – dog, cat, mouse, rat, dust mites, and molds
- Asbestos – status, demo surveys, and clearance
CAC and SST licenses - Lead-based Paint – NOVs, status, soil, water, and clearance
LRCIA and LST - Mold – status, and verification (clearance)
Certifications: CIE, CMRS, CMC - Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) – surveys, and clearance
- Drinking Water – lead, pesticides, chemicals (PFAAs), plus a lot more
- Air Mapping – TVOCs and particulates
- LEED support air testing – v4 and v4.1 with quick turnaround using preliminary Air Mapping
All About Us - Our Story
John and Laura Riera began American Air Testing right after 9/11. California has just passed a new law that required real estate sellers to disclose the presence of mold. We created a one-day class to teach real estate agents about mold and received DRE credits. It wasn’t a success. One thing to know: John Riera does not ever give up. After that first big failure in the environmental business, John and Laura studied, took classes, passed tests, and met people who became our colleagues. Many of those colleagues remain our peers that we continue to work with 20 years later. We won’t “give up” on your project, just because it gets hard or there isn’t an immediate answer. A number of our clients have contacted us after previous consultants “gave up” and told them a variety of things from “You’re too hard to work with.”, “I can’t fix your tenants.”, “You don’t have enough money.”, etc. John found a way to solve all of these problems; and he won’t give up on you! We try always to find the most direct, least expensive way to permanently fix your environmental problems.
We began inspecting buildings for mold only; some were real estate sales. After several years we added asbestos and lead services, as it became apparent that most buildings in the San Francisco Bay Area may have those contaminants present. The presence of asbestos and/or lead in a mold remediation expands the necessary work and keeps your employees, tenants, family, and pets safe. Too many times we go to a project and find an untrained person has removed asbestos containing building materials and created a much, much larger problem.
In 2004 Johnny Riera joined American Air Testing. In 2009 Michelle Riera joined American Air Testing. Both still work for American Air Testing today. We have remained a small, family business by choice. So many of our peers grew at an alarming rate and now are closed because of the employee mistakes and overhead.
We enjoy providing unique, customized services for each client. Our clients like it also; several clients have remained with us for 10+ years.
We added infrared water leak detection inspections next. That service provided useful, necessary information to our clients and environmental contractors. We discontinued those inspections, because it became too dangerous – there were too many times that we had to balance on an outside fire escape with on hand and take a photo with a very heavy camera with the other hand. This is the early 2000s. We can usually duplicate that service with knowledge, experience, and moisture meters. This is much less expensive for our clients and much safer for us.
Next came chemicals. And now we offer LEED air testing support services and chemical sensor “blood hounding” to find the sources of the VOC problems.
The daily studying to learn new and more things has never stopped. We enjoy the challeng
Independent Environmental Testing
We are environmental consultants. We do not perform any sort of abatement or remediation services. We submit our samples to independent, certified laboratories for analysis – we do not analyze our own samples. By doing business this way we remain independent. This insures we can always delivery unbiased information. If you don’t have a problem we tell you – we don’t need to “make things up” to earn more money on a project. It’s unfortunate that some companies do this.
We do offer “Peace of Mind” inspections with reports. Know for sure before you invest your time and money into an environmental cleanup.
Our History
Our company was formed in the months following September 11th, 2001. At that time, a California law was passed that required real estate professionals to disclose the toxic mold condition of properties transferred, just like a termite inspection.
Testing for mold was how this business began. As we performed more and more inspections, we saw the need for additional testing services and expanded our knowledge and ability to include testing for asbestos, lead-based paint, sewage (bacteria), VOCs, allergens, and drinking water analysis to our services. We also offer LEEDs v4 and v4.1 initial testing and recertification.
Laws, Guidelines, and Industry Standards
The real estate mold disclosure law remains in effect, however, it is difficult to enforce as there is no clearly defined levels of acceptable toxic mold. Industry standard dictates that interior levels of mold must be less than or comparable to an outside baseline. There are also local laws that were intended to protect tenants.
For real estate transactions, we recommend that all Buyers request Sellers to provide a CLUE (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange) report. This report is from the insurance industry and lists all water related claims for the property. If there’s been a water claim, a buyer should request a mold clearance document from the seller.
Asbestos laws are administered by the EPA and the Bay Air Air Quality Management. The rules and laws are complex. Application for a demo permit or to remove a load-bearing wall require a licensed asbestos inspection before a building/demo permit is issued. We on the approved vendor list of both asbestos and lead inspectors.
There are government and industry standards for odors/VOCs and particulate matter. There are 187 hazardous air pollutants designated by the EPA. This group of chemicals is referred to as HAPS. Here’s the EPA’s list of HAPS. Asbestos is included in this list, though asbestos fibers are a mineral from Serpentine rocks.