The short version

Find each spot and name it. Have the remediation contractor clean and treat those members, not the whole floor. Then have an independent inspector look at the framing again and take surface samples before anyone hangs board. When the framing is consistent with Condition 1 as defined by ANSI/IICRC S520, the area is considered suitable for continued construction.

That is the whole process. The rest of this guide is the detail behind each step, so you know what to ask for and what a good report looks like.

Step 1: Find it and name it

Framing inspections start once the roof is on and the framing is up. Before that, the building is still taking weather. We walk each unit with a flashlight and a pin meter and look at every exposed member we can reach.

Each growth location is photographed, circled in our field software, and named by unit, room and wall letter. Wall A is the wall you walk in through, B is to the left, C is the back wall, and D is to the right. A finding reads like "growth on upper truss, bathroom wall D." Your remediation crew can stand in the doorway and walk straight to it.

Naming each spot is what makes spot treatment possible. Blanket treatment of a whole floor costs you time on members that never needed it. A list of named locations keeps the work to the framing that has growth.

Step 2: Tell growth from staining

A lot of framing lumber arrives stained, and stained wood is not the same as growing mold. Active colonies show green, yellow, orange, black or teal discoloration that forms a visible three-dimensional matrix on the wood. Sapwood fungal staining and other discoloration sit flat in the grain.

We judge the hard cases by touch as well as sight. The question is whether a mark is benign staining or growth that is digesting the cellulose and lignin in the wood. Only the growth goes on the treatment list. For more on telling the two apart, and on where to take moisture readings, see How Dry Should Wood Framing Be Before Drywall?

Step 3: Treatment, done by others

The remediation contractor treats the affected members. A sound scope has three parts:

• HEPA vacuuming. Loose material comes off the wood first.
• Mechanical cleaning. Wire brushing or an equivalent method removes the growth from the surface.
• Antimicrobial treatment. Applied to the cleaned members.

Ask for a pigmented antimicrobial. When the product has a color, green in one of our recent reports, the inspector can confirm by eye that every named member was treated. A clear product leaves nothing to check.

Prescient does not sell remediation. We find the growth, and we check the work, but another company does the cleaning. That keeps our findings independent of who gets paid to fix them. If visible growth is 10 square feet or more, call the hygienist the same day. Above 10 square feet, we write the remediation protocol your contractor works from.

Step 4: Clearance before you cover it

Clearance, also called post-remediation verification, has two parts. First, a visual inspection of the accessible framing in the treated areas. Second, representative surface sampling with swabs. The samples travel under chain of custody to an AIHA/EMLAP-accredited laboratory, which analyzes them by direct microscopy.

Air sampling is not part of clearance on an open jobsite. Air samples only mean something in a space free of construction dust and debris. While the walls are open and trades are cutting, visual checks and surface samples are the tools that give you a real answer.

Ask for a report that ties back to the named locations from Step 1. For each spot, it should show what was found, how it was treated, which members were sampled, and what the lab saw. If a member needed a second round, the report should say so and show the second check.

Before the walls close, the wood also needs to read at or below 19% moisture content. Treated framing that is still wet gets dried and read again before it is covered.

When the lab finds something

Sometimes the lab reports residual fungal structures on a swab. That does not necessarily mean active growth. It may be settled spores or remnant material left after cleaning. Either way, those members get additional detail cleaning and retreatment, and then we verify them again.

That loop is normal. A report that shows a second round on a few members is a sign the process worked. You can see how findings, treatment and verification read on paper in our sample framing clearance report.

Framing clearance is one piece of a larger routine. For the log, the limits and the people who own them, see What a Construction Moisture Management Plan Should Include.