MoldRANGE™ Report
What Is MoldRANGE™?
MoldRANGE™ is a compilation of data from thousands of outside air samples. It enables you to get statistical information about, and easily communicate to your clients, the types and amounts of fungal spores that are typically present in the outside air both by time of year and region of the country.
What Does MoldRANGE™ Do?
MoldRANGE™ helps in many of your important tasks such as:
- Avoid unnecessary additional remediation
- Calm clients who are in a panic over 100 spores/m3 of Penicillium/Aspergillus type spores
- Interpret data when outdoor samples had to be taken in bad weather or with snow cover
- Understand which types of spores may be indicative of indoor mold growth and which ones probably aren't
In the situations above, the MoldRANGE™ report provides documentation that can help you communicate with your client by providing them with a better understanding of typical outdoor spore levels. Better documentation and improved understanding can help your client make more informed decisions based upon the best scientific data available. For example, providing unbiased third-party data showing that Penicillium/Aspergillus type spores are typically present in outdoor samples from your area in quantities of hundreds or thousands of spores per cubic meter can sometimes calm a client who is panicked over low levels inside. In some cases, this little bit of extra documentation can help them, and you, avoid mistakes such unnecessary re-cleaning.
Can MoldRANGE™ Replace My Normal Outdoor Air Sample?
MoldRANGE™ is intended to be another useful piece of the puzzle. It was not designed to replace normal outside control(s). Weather, local vegetation and activity levels, and many other factors affect the fungal flora. Consequently, no database could replace actual samples from the project site.
How Do I Read The Report?
The report shows the data from the actual outside sample(s) taken for the project. The 'Typical Outdoor Data' represents the typical outdoor spore levels for the location and time frame indicated. The last column in each section is the frequency of occurrence. The other five columns, labeled "very low", "low", "medium", "high", and "very high" represent the 10, 20, 50, 80, and 90 percentile values of the spore type when it is detected.
Outdoor Spore Levels And MoldRANGE™
As you know, outdoor mold spore counts may vary widely over relatively short time spans. Consequently, judging whether or not an indoor environment has significantly lower spore counts than outdoors can be a difficult challenge. This is true even if two outdoor samples have been taken, one at 8AM and another at 4PM, since the spore types and concentrations recovered on these two samples may be very different. Other sampling factors may also affect your outdoor sample results, and unless you can take many outdoor samples on each sampling day, you have only limited information on actual outdoor spore concentrations.
MoldRANGE™ is designed to provide some additional information to aid in interpreting limited outdoor sampling data. MoldRANGE™ takes advantage of the tens of thousands of data points that we have collected from outdoor spore trap samples. All of these samples have been analyzed by our experts all of whom have college degrees in biology and have gone through intensive training, have passed statistical quality assurance programs, and pass ongoing statistical quality control tests. These data points have been collected throughout the year and in many different geographic localities.
MoldRANGE™ separates our large dataset into two sections: spores that are very unlikely to be growing in indoor reservoirs, and spores that are recognized as indoor contaminants. In the first column, the data from your outdoor sample is listed by taxon, including taxa that were only counted on the related indoor samples in your project. The next two sections are summaries of our data that is most relevant for your sample. The first section is 'Typical Outdoor Data for:' the month and state (U.S.)/province (Canada) in which the outdoor sample was taken. The second section lists the 'Typical Outdoor Data for:' the state (U.S.)/province (Canada) in which the outdoor sample was taken across all 12 months. The data summaries include the 10 (very low), 20 (low), 50 (med), 80 (high) and 90 (very high) percentile values when recovered, and the frequency of recovery for the spore type. For example, if the frequency of occurrence is 65% and the high value is 1,100, the spore is recovered on 65% of outdoor samples for the given state and month, and, when recovered, 80% of the time, the concentration will be lower than 1,100 spores/m3.
Download the Sample of MoldRANGE™ Report
MoldRANGE™ is not a substitute for on-site outdoor samples, or for your expert observations of the site. It does, however, provide additional information about typical outdoor spore concentrations, and allows you to make more informed judgments about what your data means.
Examples of How You Might Use MoldRANGE™:
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You have spent a long day sampling in a large building, and are concerned that your outdoor samples will be atypically low due to the weather (below zero with snow cover). Indoor spore counts are in the 200-300 range, with Cladosporium as the dominant type. One interpretation of this kind of result is that Cladosporium is growing in the building. However, you have done your usual intensive inspection and haven't found any potential fungal reservoirs. MoldRANGE™ will tell you that outdoor Cladosporium levels in your area average 1500/m3 throughout the year. This means that for a good part of the year, Cladosporium levels are much higher than your indoor levels, and present the possibility that the indoor spores you have found have entered during other seasons and have become re-aerosolized from settled dust. Thus, combining your own expertise with our database allows you to formulate broader and probably more accurate interpretations of your observational and sampling data.
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You have recovered 800 Penicillium/Aspergillus spores/m3 in your outdoor sample near a home in which Pen/Asp levels are in excess of 2000/m3. While 2000 Pen/Asp spores would normally be considered high, you wonder whether or not the single outdoor sample result constitutes a reasonable estimate of the outdoor environment. MoldRANGE™ tells you that, in fact, the 800 is in the upper range of Pen/Asp concentrations in your area, and that levels above that would be unusual. Thus, you can more confidently say that the spores collected indoors are likely to be from indoor sources. On the other hand, if 800 were in the low part of the Pen/Asp range for outdoors, you might seriously consider that the indoor spores were remnants from an outdoor aerosol event that occurred before or after you collected your outdoor sample. This could be especially true if, for example, the home has a citrus tree nearby, since fallen fruit usually support large Penicillium populations.
How do I receive MoldRANGE™ with my reports?
If you are a current client, please contact your Project Manager to generate this report for any specific set of data you'd like, or to set up your reporting preferences to automatically receive this report.