Mold Removal in London, Ontario: How to Choose a Company

To choose a company for mold removal in London, Ontario, look for four things: they find and fix the moisture source, they work inside containment with HEPA filtration, they give you a written scope and price before starting, and they hand you documentation when they finish. Ontario does not license mold removal as a trade, so anyone with a van and a sprayer can advertise it. The checks below are how you separate careful operators from the rest.

Who offers mold removal in London, Ontario

You will run into three kinds of outfits when you start calling around.

• Restoration franchises. These are set up mainly around insurance claims and large losses such as floods and fires. Most of them also rebuild, so one company can take a job from tear-out to paint.
• Independent mitigation and environmental companies. These focus on the removal, drying and documentation and stop there. That is the kind of company we are. We do not rebuild, and we refer drywall, flooring and paint to local contractors.
• General contractors, handymen and cleaners who take mold jobs as a sideline. Some do good work. Many do not own containment or HEPA equipment, and that matters once the job is bigger than a patch of bathroom caulking.

None of these is automatically the right or wrong pick. What matters is the method they use in your house and what they put in writing.

What a proper mold removal job looks like

The accepted reference for this work is the IICRC S520 standard. You do not need to read it. You only need to know the basic sequence a company following it will describe.

1. Find the moisture source with a moisture meter and, where useful, a thermal camera. Mold is a moisture problem first.
2. Set up containment around the work area with plastic sheeting, and run negative air through a HEPA-filtered machine so dust and spores are pulled out of the work area instead of drifting through the house.
3. Remove what cannot be cleaned. Moldy drywall, carpet pad and insulation are bagged and taken out. Wood framing and sheathing are usually cleaned in place by sanding, brushing or blasting, then HEPA vacuumed.
4. Dry the structure. In our jobs that means framing reading under 16% wood moisture content, with readings logged daily.
5. Document it. You should get before and after photos and the moisture readings in a report.

If a company skips straight to step three, or replaces steps two through four with a fogging machine, you are buying a cosmetic fix.

Why the moisture source matters more than the spray

London has humid summers and cold winters, and both feed mold in different parts of a house. In winter, warm indoor air leaks into the attic and condenses on the cold roof sheathing. A bathroom fan that dumps into the attic instead of outside makes it much worse. In summer, humid air meets cool basement walls and floors, and the clay-heavy soil around many foundations here holds water against the concrete.

A good company will tell you which of these is going on in your house and what has to change. That might be a fan duct run to the outside, more attic ventilation, a dehumidifier, or a grading or downspout fix. If nobody talks about the cause, the mold will be back, and no product sprayed on wood will prevent that for long.

How to compare mold removal quotes

Ask every company for the scope in writing and line the quotes up side by side. A useful quote states the area in sq ft, what gets removed and what gets cleaned in place, how containment will be set up, how many days equipment will run, how waste leaves the house, and what is excluded. A one-line quote that says mold treatment and a price tells you nothing.

For a sense of scale, most attic jobs here run $2,300 to $6,500 and most basement jobs run $1,200 to $9,500. Size, access and how much material has to come out move the number within those ranges. A price far below everyone else usually means a step is missing, most often containment or the drying.

Be cautious about paying for air testing before you get a quote. Health Canada's position is that indoor mold should be removed whatever the species, so a lab result rarely changes what has to be done when you can already see growth. Testing has its place when a real estate deal or a dispute needs a third-party result.

Red flags when hiring

• No moisture readings taken during the visit or asked for in photos.
• Spray, fog or paint-over offered as the whole job.
• Scare talk about toxic mold and pressure to sign on the spot.
• No mention of containment for anything larger than a small patch.
• A verbal price with no written scope.
• Full payment demanded before any work starts.
• No report or photos offered at the end.

What to do next

Take clear photos of the growth and the area around it, plus a wide shot that shows the size of the space. Send them to two or three companies and ask for a written scope and price. We turn photo quotes around within 2 hours between 7 am and 9 pm. Compare the quotes line by line on method first and price second, and book the one that explains the cause as clearly as the cleanup.

Common questions