This is the page about how the actual job is run. If you read only one thing before hiring somebody, read this, because the difference between a proper remediation and a bad one is almost entirely about containment and almost nothing about which chemical gets sprayed at the end.
The industry reference is the IICRC S520 standard for professional mold remediation. It is not law in New Mexico. New Mexico has no mold statute and no mold license. S520 is the document everyone credible works to anyway, and asking a contractor whether the scope follows it is a fast way to find out who is serious.
The principle: source removal, not treatment
S520 is blunt about this. You do not kill mold in place and leave it there. Dead spores still cause the same reactions as live ones, and the material they grew into is still degraded. The standard is physical removal of the contamination and the contaminated porous material, then cleaning of what stays.
Which means any pitch built around a spray, a fog, an ozone treatment or a "mold sealant" as the primary method is selling you the wrong thing. Those have supporting roles at most.
Step by step
1. Assess and scope
Define the contaminated area, find the water source, and put both in writing along with what will be removed and what will be cleaned. Condition levels matter: normal fungal ecology, settled spores from a nearby source, and actual growth are three different problems with three different scopes.
2. Protect the occupants
Decide whether anyone needs to be out of the house. Consider anyone with asthma, allergies, lung disease or a compromised immune system. Most Santa Fe jobs do not require moving out. Some do, and you should be told that before demolition begins, not during.
3. Build containment
Six mil poly sheeting seals the work area, floor to ceiling, taped at the perimeter. A zippered entry, and for larger jobs a decontamination chamber, controls traffic in and out. Every supply and return register in the zone gets sealed and the system serving it is shut down. Floor protection runs from the containment to the exit door.
4. Establish negative pressure
An air filtration device with a true HEPA filter pulls air out of the containment and exhausts it outdoors, holding the work area at lower pressure than the rest of the house. Now every gap in the plastic leaks inward. This one machine is what keeps the rest of your home clean.
5. Controlled removal
Porous material with growth comes out: drywall, insulation, carpet and pad, ceiling tile, particleboard, wallpaper. Drywall is cut back beyond the visible boundary, generally to the next framing member plus a margin, and cut lines are scored and misted to hold down dust. Everything comes out in sealed bags, HEPA vacuumed on the outside before it leaves containment.
6. Clean what stays
Framing, sheathing, concrete, adobe and other semi-porous or non-porous surfaces get HEPA vacuumed, then damp wiped with a detergent solution, then HEPA vacuumed again. Deep staining in wood grain may call for abrasive methods, meaning sanding, wire brushing or soda and crushed-glass media blasting.
7. Dry to a standard
Air movers and dehumidification run until the affected material matches a dry reference reading of the same material elsewhere in the building, and that gets documented daily. Santa Fe's dry air genuinely helps here once the cavity is open and the leak is stopped.
8. Fix the water
Non-negotiable, and covered on moisture source repair.
9. Verify before rebuild
Independent post-remediation verification while the wall is still open.
10. Rebuild
Drywall, texture, paint, and on Santa Fe exteriors, stucco patching that matches. Match on hand-troweled stucco is its own craft and worth asking about before the crew starts.
Special considerations for Santa Fe buildings
Adobe walls
Adobe is not drywall. You do not cut it out and replace it with a sheet from the store. Remediation on an adobe wall means removing failed plaster, letting the mass dry, which takes considerably longer than framed construction because there is so much material holding water, and then re-plastering with a vapor-permeable system rather than sealing it up with something hard and impermeable. Rushing an adobe wall back to a finished surface before the mass is dry is the most common mistake made on historic properties here.
Vigas, latillas and exposed structure
Where the structure is the finished ceiling, you cannot hide the repair. Cleaning has to be done with the final appearance in mind, and media blasting on a viga has to be dialed back so it does not scar wood that you will be looking at for the next fifty years.
Historic properties
Homes in the Historic Eastside and other protected districts can carry approval requirements for exterior work. That affects stucco, canales and roof visible changes far more than it affects the interior removal, but it affects the schedule, so it should be raised on day one.
Asbestos and lead
Anything built before roughly 1980 may contain asbestos in joint compound, floor tile, mastic or duct wrap, and lead in paint. That changes the job from mold remediation into regulated abatement, with different rules, different training and different disposal. A contractor who does not raise this on an older Santa Fe home has not done many older Santa Fe homes.
What a fair estimate looks like
- Square footage of material being removed, by room and surface.
- Containment and negative air listed as line items, not assumed.
- Number of drying days and equipment on site.
- Disposal.
- Whether verification is included and who performs it.
- Whether reconstruction is included or quoted separately.
- What triggers a change order.
What happens if you wait
The scope grows along the moisture path, and the moisture path in a wall follows the framing. Every extra month is more stud bays, more insulation, more chance the bottom plate is soft and you have moved from remediation into carpentry. On adobe the deterioration is to the wall material itself. There is no version of this where waiting is cheaper.
Not sure how bad it is? Call and find out.
Tell us what you are seeing and where. We will get a local remediation contractor out for a free on-site estimate, usually the same week. Nothing is owed for the visit.
Tap to call — 24/7(505) 578-1720What you should see when you walk in
You do not need to know the standard to tell whether a job is being run properly. Walk in on day one and look for five things.
- Plastic sealed floor to ceiling around the work area, taped at the edges, with a zippered doorway rather than a sheet tacked up.
- A machine running with a hose or duct going out a window or door. That is the negative air unit. If nothing is running, ask why.
- Tape over the supply and return registers inside the work zone.
- Floor protection running from the containment all the way to the exit door, not just inside the room.
- Debris leaving in sealed bags, wiped down, not carried out in open armloads.
If the plastic is up but nothing is running, the containment is decorative. That is the most common thing we hear about on jobs that went badly.
Frequently asked questions
What is a negative air machine and do I really need one?
A blower with a HEPA filter that pulls air out of the sealed work area and exhausts it outside. It is the difference between removing mold from one room and redistributing it through the whole house. On any job involving open cavities, yes.
How much can I remove myself?
Roughly ten square feet on a hard surface, with the leak fixed, with an N95 and gloves, and with ventilation. Beyond that, or anywhere inside a wall, ceiling or duct, get containment.
Do I have to leave the house?
Usually not. Containment exists so you do not have to. You should leave for the work if someone in the household has asthma, a lung condition or a weakened immune system, or if the containment has to cross a main living area.
Will they use bleach?
Not as the primary method, and not on porous material. Detergent cleaning plus HEPA vacuuming is the standard approach. Bleach has a limited role on hard non-porous surfaces.
What is IICRC S520?
The industry consensus standard for professional mold remediation. New Mexico does not require it legally, but it is what credible contractors write their scopes against.
How long does a job take?
Small contained room: one to three days plus drying. Multi-room or attic and crawl work: a week or more. Add time for roof repair, which waits on weather here, and for adobe, which dries slowly.
What if they find asbestos once the wall is open?
Work stops in that area and it becomes a regulated abatement job under different rules. That is normal on pre-1980 buildings and it is why a good estimate spells out what triggers a change order.