Plenty of Florida companies will come and look at your house for nothing. What that visit actually covers varies a lot depending on who you call, which matters more than most people expect.
What a free mold inspection includes
A free mold inspection is a trained person looking at your house and measuring the moisture in it. Expect four things.
- A walk of the whole property, not only the room you called about. Water travels, so a ceiling stain often starts two rooms away.
- Moisture readings. A meter reads what your eyes cannot. Elevated readings behind a wall that looks perfectly dry are the most useful thing a free visit produces.
- A check for the smell. Florida's Department of Health says indoor mold growth can usually be seen or smelled, so a musty smell with nothing visible tells you where to open something up.
- Written findings you keep, whether or not you hire the company.
That is a real service. A company can afford to give it away because it costs them a technician for an hour or two with no laboratory involved.
What a free inspection does not include
Laboratory work. Air samples and surface swabs go to an accredited lab, the lab charges for every sample and nobody absorbs that indefinitely. A company promising unlimited free lab testing is either not using a lab or recovering the cost somewhere you have not been shown.
There is a reason not to mind. The EPA says that in most cases, if visible mold growth is present, sampling is unnecessary. If you can already see it, a lab confirming it is there changes nothing about what happens next.
Why some companies call free inspections a sales tactic
The criticism is worth stating properly. A remediation company is paid according to the size of the job, so when the same company decides how big the problem is, whoever sets the scope is paid in proportion to it. No dishonesty is needed for that to bend outcomes.
Florida takes it seriously enough to regulate. State law bars a company from carrying out a mold assessment and then the remediation on the same property within twelve months. The useful detail is where the line falls. Florida defines an assessment as a process involving physical sampling, so a free visual walkthrough is not one. Sampling is where the regulated activity begins, which is why a free inspection and a paid assessment are genuinely different things rather than the same thing at two prices.
Free mold inspection for renters
You can book a free inspection on a place you rent. You cannot authorize anyone to open a wall, because only the owner can do that.
The visit still earns its keep as evidence. Written findings and dated moisture readings turn "I think there is mold" into something your landlord has to answer. Put the request in writing and keep a copy.
Florida's landlord maintenance duty sits in section 83.51, which covers building, housing and health codes. It never mentions mold. No Florida statute specifically requires a landlord to remediate it either, so for anything touching your lease, talk to a lawyer.
Questions to ask before you book
- What is included at no cost and what costs money? Get the boundary before the visit rather than during it.
- If you recommend sampling, will you quote it before collecting anything?
- Who is licensed and what is the number? Florida licenses individuals rather than companies, with separate assessor and remediator licenses. You can check a number on the state register yourself.
- Do I get written findings whether or not I hire you? A report you only see after signing is a quote wearing a lab coat.
- If mold is found, who does the removal? Ask how they handle the twelve-month rule.
A free inspection that tells you where the water is
A walk of the whole property, moisture readings on the walls that look fine and written findings you keep whether or not you hire us.
Available 24/7 · Written findings included
Whatever an inspection turns up, the thing that decides whether you deal with this once or every year is the water rather than the mold. Bullfrog Waterproofing holds Florida Mold Remediator License MRSR5565. Our free visit is a visual survey with moisture readings. We quote any laboratory sampling separately, before anyone takes a sample. See the full mold inspection service, or the local pages for Orlando, Tampa and Sarasota.