“Black mold” is a color, not a diagnosis. The CDC says it is not necessary to determine what type of mold is growing, because any mold should be removed (cdc.gov). The useful question is where the moisture is, and what treating it costs. Whole-home disinfection for mold is $0.30 per heated square foot, $200 minimum.
See your price
- Whole-home disinfection: $0.30 per heated sq ft ($200 minimum)
- Clean the vents on the same visit: $50 each (no extra minimum)
- Both include Bactronizing with BactroKill Plus + 12-month written guarantee
Not sure what you need?
Start with the vents
A smell that rides the air is growing in the duct work. We scrub each vent and return with a rotary brush, clean the registers, the coil and the outside of the air handler, then treat them. $50 a vent, from $399 on its own. Spores travel on the air, so most people add the whole-home disinfection on the same visit, and then the vents carry no minimum. 12-month written guarantee.
Start with the whole home
A smell that sits in the rooms, or came with the last people, is on the surfaces, not only in the air. Whole-home disinfection sprays every surface in the house, closets included, plus the duct work and the drain pan: $0.30 per heated square foot, $200 minimum, about 30 to 75 minutes, and you can stay home. Dust or growth in the vents needs cleaning first, so add the air duct cleaning at $50 each on the same visit if the vents are dirty. 12-month written guarantee.
We look first
Mold you can see gets wiped off, not sprayed over. Every one is different, so we look before we price it, and Greg puts the price in writing before any work starts.
Fix the water first
Mold is a water problem first. Wet material grows again, so the leak, the flood or the drain line gets fixed before anything is sprayed. Once it is dry we treat it, and if something is still wet we say so before we start.
Two ways to be sure
If you can smell it or see it, the CDC says you do not need to know the type, so most people skip the test and treat. To be sure anyway: while we are at the house we can swab a surface and read it on a hand-held meter, or send samples to a lab, $350 for two and $450 for four.
Request a window Or start with the treatment Call 843-282-7777
Open now. Closes at 4 pm.
Call 843-282-7777Request a windowGreg confirms it in writing.Do not know the square footage? Request a visit without a number. We work it out when we come out.
Veteran owned. Licensed and insured. EPA-registered product. 12-month written guarantee.
Is black mold different from any other mold?
Not in a way that changes what you do about it. Stachybotrys chartarum is a greenish black mold, and constant moisture is required for its growth (source). That last part is the useful half of the sentence: where you find it, something has been wet for a long time, and the wet thing is the actual problem.
Color will not identify it anyway. Plenty of dark growth on a vent is not Stachybotrys, and plenty of Stachybotrys is not especially black. Anyone quoting you a price over the phone on the strength of the word “black” is guessing.
How do I know the black around my vents is mold?
Often you do not, from looking. Dark specks around a register can be mold, or soot, or dust that has taken on the color of the duct.
Two things narrow it down without a lab. It comes back within days of being wiped, and it is worse at the registers the air actually moves through. In a Lowcountry house the reason is usually condensation: Charleston sits at about 72 percent average relative humidity, the cooled metal of the duct runs below the dew point of the air around it, and the water that forms there does not dry out.
If you want certainty rather than an inference, lab testing is $350 for two samples and $450 for four. Most people skip it, because the CDC’s position is that the type does not change the answer.
What does it cost to treat black mold in Charleston?
The same as treating any other mold, because the work is the same work.
| What is treated | Price |
|---|---|
| The whole house | $0.30 per heated square foot, $200 minimum |
| Air duct cleaning and treatment, same visit | $50 a vent and return, no extra minimum |
| Air duct cleaning and treatment, on its own | $50 a vent, from a $399 minimum |
| Lab testing | $350 for two samples, $450 for four |
You give us the heated square feet and the vent count, and the total you see is the total on the invoice. A 2,000 square foot house with 10 vents is $1,100.
What we do, and what we do not do
We clean first, then treat. Each vent and return is scrubbed with a rotary brush, then the registers, the coil and the outside of the air handler are cleaned, and then BactroKill Plus, an EPA-registered product (EPA Reg. No. 82972-1-90746), goes on with an electrostatic sprayer. Bactronix calls that process Bactronizing.
What we do not do is tear-out. If growth is behind drywall, in insulation, or in material that has been soaked, that is structural remediation and it is a different trade with a different license. Porous material that stayed wet gets replaced, not sprayed. We will tell you that when we see it, rather than spray over it and invoice you.
The guarantee goes on the invoice in writing: if what we treated comes back inside 12 months, we come back and re-treat it at no charge. The one exclusion is an area where new water has come in since, because new water grows new mold.
Where we work
Charleston, Summerville, Cane Bay, Nexton, Carnes Crossroads, Goose Creek and Moncks Corner. The price is the same in every town.
More on the ducts themselves: mold in air ducts, what this work costs, and what the CDC says about mold and health.