re: Home Air Quality Testing

OP - you can do what these unqualified guys are offering and quiet your wife at the same time.

Go to EMSL Lab on Industriplex if you are in the BTR area.

Often, EMSL will loan you the equipment you'll need to collect the air samples (high volume air pump and Tygon tubing). You may have to use a credit card to secure this in case you damage, lose or do not return their equipment.

You'll have to buy the air sampling cassettes (spore traps).

They will show you how to assemble the sampling mechanism/ sample train if you ask.

Collect samples both indoors and outdoors in the breathing zone (~6ft from ground/floor). Don't sample right after a rain event as the outdoor concentrations will be too low to give you a good comparison.

Bring everything back to EMSL and pay for analysis of samples.

Compare indoor results to outdoor results. Lower spore concentrations indoors are what you are hoping for.

Good luck.

I hear ya man. I've sat in on those EMSL advanced fungal courses many times over the years. Im sure you can also appreciate how after many years of experience, most are way more qualified than the people giving those classes. Me personally, I've decided to stop using EMSL (after sending them literally millions of $ in business, mostly PLM analysis) and have been using a different lab for the last 5 years, but to each his own. I'm not doubting your knowledge of the topic, but the advice you just gave the OP is the only way I can see spending that much money on a 4 cassette air inspection for mold. When you send hundreds of cassettes to a certified lab a month, you get better pricing. He will pay out the butt for analysis if he doesn't have a contract with the lab. Add in the lack of experience of where to set the pumps, which you did help on, correct calibration of the rotometer, run time, etc. your recommendation just isn't mine.

To the OP, good luck with your issue and let me know if you would like any additional information regarding home air quality testing.