ERMI Dust Testing

Here’s what I mean: Joe owns a home is the heart of Brooklyn and collects dust from under his front room couch, his 15 year old’s bedroom closet, and under his dishwasher. Jane owns a house in rural Iowa and takes a dust sample from the front seat of her work truck, on top of her refrigerator, and behind a sofa. Joe, has professional housekeeping service weekly for years. Jane is relaxed about her housekeeping and reports infrequent and/or deep cleaning. Joe’s sample probably wouldn’t have enough dust, Joe’s dust would be recent. Jane had too much dust and that dust could be 5 years old. Environmental Relative Moldiness Index, or ERMI, developed by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency researchers, is a research tool and is not recommended for use except as a research tool. There are physicians that rely on ERMI results when working with patients. We never contradict a physician and will perform ERMI testing. Homes with high ERMI values have a greater chance of having a mold problem then homes with a low ERMI. 36 different fungi make up the ERMI and are designated as Group I (those found in atypical, water-damaged homes) and Group II (those commonly found in all homes): An ERMI test is a composite dust sample test. Because of this, we cannot determine from these results where the contamination or source(s) of moisture causing any contamination are located. We also cannot give accurate cleanup instructions (remediation protocol) with this sort of sampling. Also, we are testing historical dust located in your home or office. It is not possible to determine if the dust was collected over the last five years or one week. We do try to test dust from behind the furniture or appliances, if possible. It is recommended that a companion traditional mold air samples be taken concurrently with ERMI testing. This ensures fuller snapshot in time of the mold level exposure. Because of the costs involved, we recommend obtaining mold air sample with ERMI dust samples and holding the ERMI samples at the lab, pending mold air sample results. If elevated mold spores are found in the air, then the ERMI dust samples can be analyzed at the lab. With all lab results plus our initial physical inspection with photos we are able to give mold cleanup or remediation professional instructions for successfully removing the mold from your home or office.