Clearance Testing for Restoration Partners

We provide independent post remediation verification for restoration contractors in Spokane County and Kootenai County. $375 flat for up to three samples, $100 for each additional. We schedule around your crew and your containment, not the other way around, and in most cases we can be on site same day or next.

We do not perform remediation, we do not sell drying or demolition, and we take no referral fees from anyone in the trade. That is the only reason our signature on your clearance report is worth anything to your client, your adjuster, or the attorney who eventually reads it. An independent clearance costs $375 and takes under an hour. A disputed job where you signed off on your own work costs considerably more, in deposition time and carrier relationships as much as dollars.

Why the liability argument is not hypothetical

A self certified clearance is a receipt. It proves your company believed the job was complete. It does not prove the job was complete, and the moment anyone contests it, that distinction is the entire case.

Run the sequence. You remediate a crawlspace in March. The homeowner sells in September. The buyer's inspector flags residual staining on the subfloor and writes it up. Now three people are asking the same question: who verified this work was complete.

If the answer is your company, you are the defendant and the witness at the same time. Your moisture logs, your photos and your internal QC are all evidence you produced about your own performance, and opposing counsel will say so in the first five minutes. That does not mean your work was bad. It means you have nothing to point at except your own paperwork. If the answer is a third party with no stake in the outcome, the conversation is much shorter, because there is a dated document from someone who was not paid by you to reach a conclusion. That document travels. Yours does not.

New York decided this was serious enough to legislate. Labor Law Article 32 makes it illegal there for a company to both assess and remediate the same property, on the reasoning that the conflict is structural rather than personal, meaning individual integrity does not resolve it. Washington and Idaho have no equivalent rule, and neither licenses mold work at all. The Washington Department of Health states plainly that anyone can call themselves a mold specialist. So here, independence is something a contractor elects. The ones who elect it have a defensible file. The ones who do not are relying on nobody ever asking.

Partner pricing

The $375 is flat and covers the site visit, sampling, all lab fees and the written report. Three samples covers a standard single containment clearance: one inside containment, one in adjacent unremediated space, and the outdoor control. It is not a per sample fee dressed up as a package.

A failed clearance re-tests at the same price. Nothing in our pricing makes a fail more profitable than a pass. Contractors ask about that on the first call, and it is a fair question. Partners running regular volume are invoiced net 30, so there is no chasing a homeowner for a check while your equipment sits.

How we schedule around your crew

The cost of a clearance is not the $375. It is the days your containment sits up and your air scrubbers, dehumidifiers and negative air machines stay on rent while everyone waits for a tester.

Same day or next business day in most cases for Spokane County and Kootenai County, early morning or end of day if that is what fits. Call when your crew is on final cleaning rather than after the fact. Most clearances are 45 to 60 minutes on site, and partners with consistent volume get standing recurring capacity.

Rush lab when the schedule demands it. Normal turnaround is one to three business days with the report following within a day. Rush 24 hour handling is $100, usually worth it when equipment rental is running.

Do not tear down containment before we arrive. With containment down, the air sample measures the whole building instead of the work area, the result is not defensible, and the clearance has to be redone after rebuilding.

What the clearance visit covers

Containment first. Poly integrity, taped seams, negative pressure actually running, decon chamber if the scope called for one, critical barriers intact. A containment failure invalidates the sampling, so it gets checked before anything else.

Visual inspection against the scope. Remaining visible growth, remaining in-scope water damaged materials, cleaning quality on framing and structural surfaces, settled dust and debris. Judged against what IICRC S520 expects for the class of work, which is the standard your clients and their carriers use whether they name it or not.

Moisture verification. Pin and pinless meters on framing, sheathing and subfloor, with reference readings from known dry material of the same type. If material is still above dry standard, air data does not matter. Wet wood grows mold again, and a clearance that passes a wet building is a callback waiting to happen. Psychrometrics inside containment, outside it, and outdoors catch drying setups relocating moisture rather than removing it.

Air sampling. A calibrated pump draws a measured volume through a spore trap cassette, Air-O-Cell or Allergenco-D. One inside containment, one in adjacent unremediated space when the scope or the adjuster calls for it, and one outdoor control upwind of the structure, on every job. Surface sampling by tape lift or swab where residual staining raises a question, to distinguish active growth from cleaned residue. That one frequently saves a partner from tearing out material that is already fine.

What the clearance report contains

Delivered as a PDF within one business day of lab results.

• Pass or fail on the first page, with the reasoning in three or four sentences. Adjusters and homeowners read the first page.
• Scope reference and site conditions: what area was evaluated, what containment was in place, what was excluded, plus date, times, outdoor temperature and weather, since those govern how the outdoor control reads.
• Visual inspection findings against the remediation scope, area by area.
• Moisture and psychrometric tables with location, material, meter type, reading and reference dry value.
• Captioned photographs, including meter displays photographed in place.
• Sampling plan: each sample's location, height, pump flow rate, volume drawn, and why it was placed there.
• The laboratory report in full, unedited, plus a summary table of spore counts by genus.
• The chain of custody form documenting every transfer from collection to analysis, which is what makes the data defensible.
• Interpretation against the outdoor control, written out, and a specific reason for any failure.

There is no remediation proposal in it, because we have nothing to propose.

Why the outdoor control decides the result

Outdoor air always contains mold spores, in every season, so an indoor count means nothing on its own. Two hundred spores per cubic meter inside containment can be normal on a September afternoon in Spokane when outdoor counts are in the thousands, and a clear failure in February when snow cover has driven outdoor counts near zero.

The profile matters as much as the total. If the outdoor sample is dominated by Cladosporium, basidiospores and ascospores, which is typical here, and the containment sample carries Stachybotrys or Chaetomium that is absent outdoors, that is a fail regardless of raw total. Those genera do not blow in. They grow on cellulose that is still wet, which points at incomplete removal or an uncorrected water source. A clearance report with no outdoor control is not a clearance report, and those circulate here constantly.

Frequently asked questions

What happens if a job fails? A fail is data, not a verdict on your company. A large share of them come down to thirty minutes of additional HEPA work, a missed section of framing, or material that has not finished drying. You get a written reason naming the area and condition, you correct it, and we re-test at the same $375. We do not editorialize about workmanship, and we do not use a failed clearance as an opening to recommend somebody else.

How soon after the work can you test? After cleaning and drying are complete, with containment and negative air still running. Not before drying is finished, and not after containment comes down.

Do you work for us or for the homeowner? Whoever books it, and it changes nothing about what gets written. That is the point of hiring us. Both parties can receive a copy.

Will you also do pre-work documentation? Yes, at the $425 base rate. Documenting conditions before your crew starts is the cheapest insurance available on a job likely to be contested later. Send the scope with the booking and the report will reference it directly.

Is clearance required by law in Washington or Idaho? No. Neither state requires it and neither licenses mold work at all. Carriers, property managers, buyers and attorneys require it constantly, which is exactly why it has to come from someone with no stake.

Set up a partner account

Call with your typical volume and service area. We will get you on the schedule and set up net 30 invoicing.