01/19/2015
New Review from a Happy Customer:
"This is going to be long, prepare yourself…
I’ll try and keep the “history” short:
1) Move into the house after remediation was supposed to have taken care of:
a. Mold in the attic
b. Clogged soffits
c. Bathroom vent being vented directly into the attic
Fast forward 6.5 years:
1) We have water getting into our bedroom and I crawl into the attic to find the source (the vent stack
2) I notice that the ceiling is rather black and suspect the either the mold has returned or the original company didn’t do such a good job of removing the mold previously
3) I fix the leaking vent pipe myself but I call out a roofer to get their opinion of the situation in the attic
4) He agrees we have poor ventilation and need to remediate the mold and we discuss various items on a hit list of things to fix
I begin researching and learn a lot more than I ever expected about attics, mold and proper ventilation. We decide that the obvious first step is remediation and then fixing the smaller (and bigger) jobs.
My wife does a quick search for our city and ‘mold removal’. I am expecting to call several places and have several visits (I like doing at least three) with several quotes/estimates following. I make my first call at around 7pm in the evening and I speak with “Ed” at ABC Mold Removal. It’s immediately apparent that Ed knows his stuff and their business. After I hang up with him not only do I have a verified handle on the research I’ve been doing myself I have an estimate in my email well below what I was expecting to hear, a complete rundown of what will happen when they come to our home, an even better idea of the various items I need to fix/update to KEEP the mold from coming BACK as well as two of the items off my list included in the estimate – namely: 1) pulling back the blown in insulation from clogging my soffits which was, obviously, never done when we moved in and 2) correctly venting the bathroom vent to the outside and not just up to the ridge vent. He also recommends I look into updating the ridge vent we do have as these have been updated and improved dramatically since the one we have was installed.
I like the quote and agree with all that needs done and I call him back later and schedule a date. He says he can be out within about 3 days which actually was too soon for us and we moved that out about 7 days (on a Saturday).
Fast forward once again to the day of the job:
1) They arrive on time. They stated between 7:30am and 8:00am and they arrive a few minutes before 8am.
a. At this point, I have to mention two things that struck me: 1) they greet me professionally and call my Mr. Strauss even though we’ve already exchanged first names. This continues throughout the day and 2) they remove their shoes. No prompting, no booties, no asking if they should … they just did it. All day long, in and out to bring in equipment. Some people might be saying, “well, they should.” I would tend to agree if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve had work done on my house previously – cable, front door, basement heater, etc. None of them just came in and removed their shoes. None.
2) Their setup takes about an hour and half and includes putting plastic down in the room where the access hatch is (our daughter’s closet), plastic down the hallway they have to come in and out of and a triple plastic barrier at the entrance into the room. They also close up the whole house fan and then, at long last, look into the attic to see what it’s like.
a. I was leery up to this point that they had yet to ever set eyes on my attic and the condition it was in. But they knew their stuff and came completely prepared for anything. They said it didn’t look bad and estimated that they’d be out by 1 or 2 in the afternoon. (spoiler: they were leaving my drive at 2:30pm after cleaning up completely and having a small chat with me – and, of course, getting paid).
In speaking with Ed later, during our chat, he told me that ABC Mold Removal has been doing this kind of work for thirteen (13) years and there’s a reason for that: they do a fantastic job! The black, stained attic looked like new wood. The soffits? I could see daylight through them when I went up. The bathroom fan? Vented completely to the outside. Steve – the second person on the job – did this work even though it was fairly cold out and there was some snow on the roof too. Did I mention Steve comes from a family of 5 roofers? Did I mention that Ed came prepared for anything?
The only thing we have left to do is to weatherproof any heat exchange points into the attic from the house and to install a new ridge vent (going with Ed’s suggestion of Shingle Vent II after watching a video online of how well it works).
So, in a nutshell? Highly, highly, highly recommend Ed and ABC Mold Removal to anyone who has the unfortunate need for this service (which is probably more of us than we realize)."
