LESLIE: Now we’re going to talk to Anita in Indiana who has some mold in her house.
What’s going on? Where are you seeing it?
ANITA: Well, we had the ducts cleaned last week and the gentleman told us that we had mold in them. And I was wondering is there something that it’s possible to clean ourselves or should we have it done professionally?
TOM: How did he know you had mold inside your ducts and how does he know that it was mold?
ANITA: Well, I wasn’t in the room when he tested. (Leslie chuckles)
TOM: And most importantly, was he trying to sell you an additional service?
LESLIE: Yeah, does he do the cleaning himself?
ANITA: That’s what I thought.
TOM: Ah. (laughs)
ANITA: That he’s just trying to sell us extra. But now I will admit, we’ve only lived in the house for a couple months and I am having – I’m asthmatic and I am having trouble and we rent and the landlord said that, yes, they have had mold trouble with the house before. (chuckles)
TOM: Well, you know, if you’re asthmatic and you have a hot-air heating system, one of the things that I would tell you to do is to make sure you have a good electronic air cleaner in the heating system. Now since you rent, it’s not the kind of thing that you can put in yourself because it’s pretty expensive.
ANITA: Oh.
TOM: You know, it’s probably $300 or $400 or $500. But an electronic air cleaner is installed into the HVAC system and it kills everything down to virus and mold-size particles that pass through the air.
ANITA: Yeah, is this with the ultraviolet light?
TOM: Well, that’s another one.
ANITA: OK.
TOM: That’s part of that. Yeah. Ultraviolet light inside the – it’s usually above the evaporator coil for the air conditioning system because mold will grow on that. It prevents mold from going in those particular areas. But I would suggest a couple of basic things. One would be the air cleaner and the second could be the UV lamp. That’s probably a better investment than paying somebody to clean your ducts. Because you know what? Even if they get it out, if it does exist …
ANITA: They’re going to get mold again.
TOM: … it’s just going to get moldy again. Right. You want to make some – if you’re going to spend some money, I would do some things that are going to give you less mold moving forward like …
ANITA: So an electronic air cleaner sounds like it would be the best.
TOM: Exactly. You could go to the website for Aprilaire and get some leads on that – Aprilaire.com. They also have a locator there where you can help find a contractor in the area that could put one in. They make a really, really good one.
ANITA: Alright, then I’ll do that. Thank you so much.
TOM: You’re welcome, Anita. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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