Too many companies that test indoor air quality or inspect a home stop at whatever’s easiest to spot. That leaves homeowners with an answer that sounds right but doesn’t actually explain what’s going on, while the real source, whether it’s a hidden moisture path, a humidity problem, or a mold issue, keeps creating problems for your family.
Building science training shapes the questions we ask, the tools we reach for, and they keep us focused on digging until we get to the bottom of the issues in your home.
At Building Performance Solutions, building science training is central to how Anthony and our crew approach every home. Here’s what that means for you.
How Building Science Training Changes the Process
Building science is the study of how homes perform as systems. Heat, air, and moisture move through a house constantly, and they interact in ways that aren’t always obvious from the surface.
Our extensive training means we’re not just looking at the symptom you called about. If you’re dealing with a musty smell, high humidity, or health issues in your family that you can’t explain, the actual source could be somewhere else entirely: a moisture path behind a wall, an HVAC system that isn’t managing humidity the way it should, or something wrong with your insulation you never would have thought to check on your own. Building science training is what lets us connect those dots instead of guessing.
Everything we do gets traced back to data, not assumptions. That’s a big part of why families who’ve been let down before, whether it’s by a doctor, a contractor, or another testing company, trust what Building Performance Solutions finds.
What This Looks Like in Your Home
The difference shows up in how a building-science trained assessor responds to what you describe.
Say you’re noticing a musty smell that comes and goes, or a family member’s symptoms have gotten worse and no one can tell you why. When we perform mold testing, we don’t just swab the visible mold and call it done. Our team looks at:
- Whether there are hidden moisture paths, even in places with no visible mold
- How air is moving through the home and what it’s picking up along the way
- Whether humidity levels are creating the conditions for mold to grow in the first place
Mold has hundreds of different visual presentations, and a lot of it isn’t visible at all. A company without building science training might swab what they can see and stop there. That’s exactly the kind of thing our training and background is meant to catch.
Depending on what we find, our report might point to attic insulation, ductwork issues, or a specific moisture source in a crawl space or wall cavity. We spell out exactly what’s happening and why, in reports split in two: one section with plain language that anyone can understand, and another with the technical details for whoever ends up doing the remediation (we’re happy to point you toward companies we trust and have worked with before).
What to Look For When Choosing Who Tests Your Home
Building science training comes through a handful of recognized programs, and it’s worth asking directly whether the person coming into your home actually has it.
Good questions to ask:
- How do you evaluate a home before you start testing?
- What do you look for beyond the obvious symptom?
- Do you have building science training, and are you independent from whoever ends up doing the repair work?
A company that takes this seriously will answer all three without hesitating. They’ll be able to walk you through what they look for and why, before a fix ever comes up. That conversation tells you a lot about the quality of services they provide.
At Building Performance Solutions, we serve Sarasota and the surrounding Southwest Florida area, including Naples and Longboat Key, and we’ll travel statewide for specific projects. Anthony is a licensed AC contractor and a licensed mold assessor, and he has dozens of additional certifications. Having spent his career in Florida, he also knows what tends to go wrong in homes here. We take the time to understand what’s really going on in your home, because that’s the only way to make sure whatever comes next actually solves the right problem.