Clean Crawls

We had several estimates for insulation. Belinda from Clean Crawls was the second estimator and at first we were impressed with her. The first estimator (from Crawl Pros) had said that he saw no evidence of mold. Belinda came down from our attic with pictures of what she said was evidence of mold. This consisted of staining on the wood that looked like water stains, but she said was active mold. There was nothing fuzzy growing or anything else that looked like mold, but then, I'm not an expert in this. She said that 2 out of 3 attics she looks at have mold. This made us doubt the first estimator, so we decided to move ahead with Clean Crawls. They bid the job in three parts: Part 1 -- vacuuming out all old insulation and removing any debris in the attic. Part 2 -- Mold remediation for an additional cost of $3000. Part 3 -- installation of new insulation. The total estimate came to about $7000. We had them go ahead with Part 1 so that we could have another contractor finish replacing some water-damaged ceiling without having to deal with old insulation falling down on them. After completing that, we scheduled the mold remediation for the following Monday, with insulation installation to follow on Tuesday. In the interim, my husband went up into the attic to get access to replace the bathroom ceiling fan and while he was up there looked around at the rest of the attic. After coming down, he told me that he saw no evidence of active mold and smelled no mold or mildew, which he tends to be sensitive to. He called a work colleague, who is also a licenced building inspector, who had been up in our attic a few months prior to see if the water damage from the roof leak caused any structural damage. He had told us at the time that he saw no evidence of active mold, and my husband confirmed this with him after checking out the attic himself. My husband asked me to cancel the mold remediation because he did not think the condition of the attic warranted the additional $3000 expense. I called and left a message for Clean Crawls and also left a VM for Belinda. I requested that they cancel the mold remediation but continue with the scheduled insulation installation on Tuesday. I got a phone call from Belinda first thing on Monday morning saying that she had cancelled the mold remediation. She also said that she had sent the pictures from our attic to the owner of the company as well as the mold remediation team, which is a different company, I think, and they all agreed that we had an active mold situation going on and that if we didn't have the mold remediation done they would not install new insulation. She was kind of huffy and it felt a little like she was trying to coerce me into accepting the mold remediation by refusing to put in new insulation, leaving us with an attic now empty of any insulation at all. I thanked her and said we no longer needed their services. We were now in the position of needing new insulation again, and had three additional contractors come out to give us bids. (We would have gone with Crawl Pros, but they essentially did not give us much if any price break for the removal of the old insulation that was done by Clean Crawls.) Two estimators said they saw no evidence of mold. One estimator said he saw staining on the wood from mold, but that he saw no active mold growing. This was not happening in hot summer weather. We had just gotten the new roof on before the rains came, so the weather was favorable for mold growth of there was going to be any. The four estimates (including Crawl Pros) ranged from $1400 to $4000 for only installing new cellulose insulation to the appropriate depth along with baffles to hold the insulation away from the vents. So there is quite a range, and I recommend getting several estimates. The attic was described as being from 900 sq ft to 1500 sq ft, depending on the contractor. (Clean Crawls had estimated it at close to 1500 sq ft, to my best recollection.) My husband and I felt that Clean Crawls found evidence that mold has existed in the past and used that to persuade us into accepting expensive mold remediation that we did not actually need. No one in this family has been sick or gotten any illness traceable to or likely to be related to mold. Since we were told that they see mold in 2 out of 3 attics they inspect, there is seems to be a significant financial incentive for them to find mold. I know that mold can really be an issue, and I am not suggesting that no one needs mold remediation. I wanted to like Clean Crawls. Everyone I spoke with there, from Belinda, the estimator, to the scheduler and the finance person were women, (except for the people doing the actual insulation removal) and I like supporting women in this kind of industry. Their communication was top-notch. The people who came out to clean out the old insulation did a good job of protecting our house and belongings. We just ended up not trusting the company because of the way they dealt with the mold remediation issue.