A standard residential mold inspection is $425. That includes the site visit, moisture mapping, thermal imaging, one indoor air sample, an outdoor control sample, all laboratory fees, and the written report. Each additional sample is $100. A typical three sample job lands around $525.
Those are the real numbers, and they are the same numbers you will hear on the phone. We publish them because almost nobody in this market does. Search mold testing in Spokane or Coeur d'Alene and you will find one company willing to put a price on a page. Everyone else makes you call for a quote, which usually means the quote depends on what they think you will pay.
Full price list
| Service | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Inspection base | $425 | Site visit, full walkthrough, moisture mapping, thermal imaging, psychrometrics, one indoor air sample plus an outdoor control, lab fees, written report |
| Each additional sample | $100 | Air, swab, tape lift or bulk. Includes lab analysis and inclusion in the report |
| Typical three sample job | around $525 | Base plus one extra sample. The most common residential outcome |
| Homes over 3,000 sq ft | $550 to $650 | More zones, more samples, longer site time |
| Post remediation clearance | $375 flat | Up to three samples including the outdoor control. Restoration partner and homeowner rate |
| Additional clearance samples | $100 each | Beyond the three included |
| Rush 24 hour lab turnaround | add $100 | Lab priority handling. Report still follows within a day of results |
Lab results normally come back in one to three business days. Your written report follows within a day of that. There is no separate report fee, no fuel surcharge, no administrative fee, and no charge for a phone call to walk you through the results after you have them.
What actually drives the price
Three things move the number, and none of them is how worried you sound.
Sample count. The biggest driver by far, because the lab charges per sample and the lab is a real cost. One indoor air sample plus the outdoor control answers the question in most single family homes with one area of concern. A house with a suspect crawlspace, a suspect upstairs bathroom, and a finished basement is three separate air environments, and averaging them together would produce a number that describes nothing.
Building size and complexity. A 1,400 square foot bungalow with one crawlspace access is a one hour visit. A 3,800 square foot house with a partially finished basement, a bonus room over the garage and two attic spaces is three hours and more sampling zones. That is where the $550 to $650 range comes from.
Drive time. There is no trip fee, anywhere. Spokane County, Kootenai County, and west through Lincoln County to the Lake Roosevelt corridor: Reardan, Davenport, Wilbur, Odessa, Seven Bays, Hawk Creek, Deer Meadows, Deer Lake, plus Colville and Newport. Same published price whether we drive ten minutes or ninety. If you are outside that, call anyway and we will tell you honestly whether we can get to you.
What does not move the price: whether the results come back clean, whether the property is a rental in a dispute, whether a carrier is paying, or whether you tell us on the phone that you are certain something is wrong. The scope determines the cost.
About those $149 mold inspections
You will see them advertised in both markets, sometimes as low as $99, sometimes as a free inspection. They are almost always one of two things.
A visual inspection with no laboratory work. Someone walks the house, looks at the accessible areas, maybe carries a moisture meter, and gives you an opinion. No samples, no lab, no data. That opinion may be perfectly sound, and a good visual inspector can save you money by telling you that the black stuff on your window frames is condensation mildew you can wipe off. But it produces no document that a buyer, a landlord, an adjuster or an attorney will treat as evidence, and it cannot tell you anything about what is airborne or what is inside a wall.
A free or cheap inspection offered by a remediation company. The inspection is the sales call. The company does not make its money on the $149. It makes its money on the four thousand dollar containment and demolition that follows. This is legal in both Washington and Idaho, and it is extremely common. It is also the exact arrangement New York banned under Labor Law Article 32, which makes it illegal there for one company to both assess and remediate the same property.
Neither is fraud. Both are business models. What matters is knowing what you are buying. A $149 visual is an opinion. A $425 inspection with lab work is data plus an opinion, and the data does not care who is paying.
Why we charge per sample instead of per house
Because each sample costs us money at the lab, and pretending otherwise would only mean building the average into the base price so that simple jobs subsidize complicated ones.
More importantly, per sample pricing keeps the incentive clean in the direction that matters. We do not make more money by finding mold. We make slightly more money by taking more samples, which is why we tell you the sample plan before we pull the pump out and why we will talk you out of samples that will not change the answer. If one indoor sample and a control will resolve your question, that is what we take, and the job costs $425.
The reverse arrangement, a flat fee with unlimited samples, sounds better and is worse. It creates pressure to take as few samples as possible, which is how you get a whole house summarized by a single number from the living room.
What a sample actually is
An air sample is a calibrated pump drawing a measured volume of air through a spore trap cassette, Air-O-Cell or Allergenco-D, analyzed at an accredited lab by direct microscopic examination and reported by genus in spores per cubic meter. A surface sample is a swab or tape lift, answering a different question: is this stuff actually mold, or soot, mineral efflorescence, overspray or dust.
The outdoor control is an air sample taken upwind of the structure, the same day, in the same weather. It is in every job and it is not optional, because outdoor air always contains mold spores and an indoor count with nothing to compare it against cannot be interpreted. This is the most common gap in cheap mold reports, and why some of them look alarming when conditions were ordinary.
Related pricing
Clearance testing, $375 flat for up to three samples. The post remediation verification rate, available to restoration contractors and to homeowners who want work their contractor already declared finished checked by someone who did not do it. If a clearance fails, the re-test after correction is billed at the same $375.
Payment is due at the time of service. Card, check and electronic transfer. Restoration partners and property management companies running multiple jobs are invoiced net 30.
Frequently asked questions
Is the lab fee separate? No. Lab fees are inside every price on this page. The $425 base includes analysis of the indoor air sample and the outdoor control.
Do you charge for a consultation? No. Call and describe the situation. If testing will not answer your question, we will tell you that, and it costs you nothing.
What if you need more samples once you are on site? We stop and tell you the number before taking them. You approve it or you do not. Nothing gets added to your bill without a conversation first.
Book an inspection
The price is on this page, so the only thing left is the calendar. Tell us the address, what you are seeing, and how soon you need results.
Request an inspection
Tell us where the property is and what you are seeing. If testing will not answer your question, we will say so before you spend anything.
Related
Book an inspection. $425 including one indoor air sample and an outdoor control, lab fees included. Call (509) 355-0038 or request a time.
We test only. We never perform remediation and we take no referral fees from remediation companies.