NVL Labs, Inc.

They were prompt, courteous and professional. Results were supplied on time as well. They did a really good job. I will definitely hire them again.

Very fast results.

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They tested the paint that I had on the outside of my home. They were quick and efficient and did just what I asked them too.

NVL have several offices and I ended up going to the one in Montlake Terrace. It was very easy:

They're okay. In our case, since it was for demolition, they didn't have to be careful. It was good. The report came and it was very clear and I was satisfied. They were very polite. I don't have a huge amount of comparison but I was satisfied with the price. The quality was fine. They were on time. They came within a week. Punctuality was good. They're very professional and even the responses on the telephone. If I would have something similar, I would use them again.

NVL charges more based on how quickly you want the results back. I chose the two day service and was satisfied with it; they emailed me a PDF of the results right on time.

Very professional and courteous. The Lynnwood office was easy to find with ample parking.

I recently purchased a house with popcorn ceilings that I want replaced with smooth ceilings. As everyone knows, popcorn ceilings are notorious for containing asbestos and that finding out requires lab testing. There are two choices to accomplish this: Pay an asbestos abatement contractor to take and test the samples at $65-$75 each or follow the guidelines documented by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, take the samples yourself and then have them tested. Note: Since the area containing popcorn ceilings in my house is less than 1000 square feet, the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency only requires three random samples. After a quick call I found out that NVL charges $35 per sample with a 24 hour turnaround time. Motivated to save a few bucks, I took the samples and brought them in. To save a bit more money, I asked the technician to test samples until he either found asbestos or ran out. My logic was that if one sample came back positive, I would either have to abate the popcorn myself—not something I want to do—or hire an Land I licensed contractor to abate it for me. I’m opting to hire someone; it’s not cheap, but it’s the right way to do it. Unfortunately, the technician found asbestos in the first sample. Fortunately, It only cost me $35 to find out instead of the $195-$225 an abatement contractor would have charged. I should also mention that it took less than 24 hours to get my results. I brought them in just after 1 PM and by 8 AM the next morning I had the report.

Straightforward. I brought in the paint chips and they analyzed them and sent us the results by email.

One of the things that we liked was all they do is the testing; they do not do the treatments. Which means there was no financial incentive for them to try to sell us crazy clean up procedures. There were things that we were worried about and they said not to worry about it. Price seemed reasonable. I felt like they gave us a detailed report. It did not seem like they were trying to over sell us on anything. They came when they said. We would use them again.

I dropped of the sample and though they were very busy I was treated very well and not rushed. They described the process and provided a report very quickly. They do not remove asbestos so they have no reason to give a bias opinion.

Very old layers of bathroom flooring has to be removed. My contractor recommended NVL for testing, before abatement. I called NVL, and was told that I'd be charged for each separate layer that they tested. I took in only a sample of the top layer and paid for a 5 day turnaround, since I was going to be out of town. But after 11 days I called and was told the email was sent already. Since I hadn't received it, he sent the report while we were still on the phone, and told me 62% Chrysotile was very high. If he hadn't told me that, I would not have known how to decipher the report. I have to trust that they did a quality test. I really appreciate having a cheaper option of a longer turnaround. It would be even more helpful to include hints as to how to interpret the report. Also, they are on a busy section of Aurora with no apparent parking area. I am very glad I parked a block away on a side street, rather than attempt to drive into their narrow driveway. In response to my question, the desk person told me there is no room behind the building to turn a vehicle around. It would be unsafe to back out of the driveway into Aurora. Since I had called in advance for instructions, it would have been a logical service and helpful to for her to give me this parking information on the phone. Or at least post this information on your web site. On the other hand, your website does not seem to be written for potential customers. It's hard to tell that it is yours or that you want new customers or samples. No local address or local phone number.

A painting contractor had done a very rough test of external paint and detected lead. NVL scheduled the survey at a time I could be there. The Inspector arrived on schedule, surveyed all areas, did a rough sketch of the house. He emailed and then sent a hard copy of the report. There was trace lead, but not enough to qualify as lead paint. Since my report showed no lead paint, I was able to save $1000 on painting costs. If there had been lead paint identified, I would not hae saved money, but I would at least know which paint was lead-containing, and which was not, since parts of the house were built at different times.

At all times, the technician was polite, informative and professional. We are very pleased to have performed this test and glad to know that the house has very minimal lead contamination. Although it was a lot of money to spend, it's only a tiny fraction of the overall cost of the property, and we are very glad to have gathered the information about the lack of lead contamination. Nice to know that when our young sons eat dirt, we don't have to be concerned about lead.

Following NVL's website instructions, homeowners collected samples and mailed the samples to them. Paid extra for quick turn-around. Received the results via e-mail the next day. I had to call NVL to understand the Fibers Analysis results (if the % of asbestos is above or below the regulatory unit).

I called NVL Lab the week before to set up a Lead inspection of my house. The scheduled me in the next week. The Lead Based Paint Inspector show up on time at 9:30 in the morning. He started out by making a drawing of the lay out of my house. He then pulled out XRF spectrum analyzer that uses x-rays to non-destructively penitrate different painted surfaces to see if a paint sample area contains greater than 1.0 mg/cm^2 of lead. After the XRF was calibrate the inspector proceeded room by room and then outside taking shots with the XRF spectrum analyzer. He took a total of 149 shots including calibration readings. The testing took about 2 hours. I received a PDF report 6 days later with a full report by mail 10 days after the inspection. Luckly no lead paint that requires remediation was found and I have a report for the department of ecology when I get permits to demo the house.

I am not very happy with the service provided by NVL Labs. They were prompt in setting up an appointment and punctual in making it. However, they did not seem very professional. I had a patch of mold on the ceiling where the kitchen counter was hanging previously. And a black patch in the basement.The person rubbed the patch with his fingers without any gloves.I had to call them to get the report and then I received a email report which said "DRAFT". I never recieved the final report despite sending them mail. Also the report did not specify if the floor tiles had asbestos or the glue had asbestos.

We were renovating an old house and needed to remove some textured ceiling, along with several layers of flooring in three rooms. We first got a test for the popcorn ceiling sample for $35.00. The report was emailed in less than 24 hours and was quite detailed, listing all the contents of the sample as well as the percent and type of asbestos present. About a month later, we dropped off three separate samples of the multi-layered flooring in three rooms and paid $105. When the results came back, one of the rooms had been found to contain asbestos. The report listed layers (Layer 1 of 8, Layer 2 of 8 etc) by their physical description and asbestos contents, if applicable, but unfortunately the layers listed in the results did not correspond with the layers in that room. It seemed that the layers may have come apart sometime between taking the sample and performing the test? Or POSSIBLY may not have been our sample? Because the color and layer descriptions were open to interpretation, we couldn't make the descriptions on the report match up with the layers on the floor, in order to figure out where the asbestos was. We compared it to the other two rooms, too, in case we and/or the tech had mixed up the samples, and still couldn't make sense of the results. I emailed a message to NVL labs with a friendly suggestion to, in cases of complex samples, take a picture of the sample and label the layers, then insert this key image into their report. I got a voicemail the next day from a technician who was offering to talk me through it, but because of our schedule crunch, we had already gone forward with the abatement process, in a more cautious manner than might have been necessary, had we been certain that the asbestos layer was firmly sandwiched in the middle layer, rather than possibly on the exterior and prone to damage during removal. So, I never called back to get a possible explanation, or hear a response to my suggestion. All in all, our experience was positive (they were able to identify asbestos), but I still recommend implementing a visual aid in the final report. Seems like an easy way to avoid confusion and make for happier customers.

I paid $60 for 2 samples and the test was effective. They had a nice cover letter and the documentation they sent me was really good. They were professional, responsive and punctual.

We had requested a Mold Investigation eventhough there were no visible sign of mold growth in the house. Inspector was knowledgable, he walked us through the findings and put things in prospective for us. Moldy surfaces were identified and guidence was provided for corrective action. Good thing is that I was able to do all the work and saved my self $3000; an estimate was provided by a mold remidiation contractor.

The laboratory performed the testing as expected, at a very reasonable price, and within a few days. This will provide results for service providers to use in future remodeling projects.