Adventures in Home Buying

Stop Guessing: VOC Testing And Mold Testing Do Very Different Jobs

• Jim Troth

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Ever walk into your home, catch a “new” smell, and feel off—but have no idea what to test or fix first? We break down the real-world differences between VOC testing, mold air sampling, and mycotoxin analysis so you can stop guessing and start solving. Using clear scenarios from inspections, we explain when a VOC screen uncovers chemical off-gassing from paints, flooring, and furniture, how MVOCs tip you off to active mold growth, and why formaldehyde often needs its own dedicated test in newer builds and remodels.

From there, we get practical about mold diagnostics. You’ll hear how indoor vs outdoor air comparisons reveal whether spores are truly elevated, which species point to long-term moisture, and why timing matters—some molds release spores only after drying. We also talk through targeted moisture checks in basements, crawl spaces, and roof leaks to locate the source before anyone starts tearing things apart. If you’ve ever wondered why one lab report calms fears while another raises new ones, this guide will help you interpret the signals.

We also tackle the overlooked third rail: mycotoxins. These defensive chemicals can persist after a “successful” cleanup if colonies were scrubbed before being neutralized. We discuss why standard HEPA alone falls short, emerging tactics for reducing toxin load, and how sensitized individuals can react even when spore counts look normal. By the end, you’ll have a simple decision path: when to start with VOC testing, when to move to mold air sampling with an outdoor control, and when mycotoxin testing makes sense—plus the right next steps once results come back.

If you care about healthy indoor air and smarter home inspections, this conversation gives you a clear playbook. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s struggling with mysterious symptoms at home, and leave a review to tell us which test you’d choose first and why.

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SPEAKER_01:

All right, Laura. James. We've had people go, what's the difference between actually somebody the other day he wanted to know about mold testing versus VOC testing? He didn't know the difference. Because he thought, well, what doesn't don't they each do the same thing?

SPEAKER_00:

Nope.

SPEAKER_01:

Like, no, they do not. Not even remotely. So this was the house that we were inspecting. It was, it was, I can't think how old was 2001, maybe. So it wasn't all, it wasn't very old. And they ordered a bunch of other stuff. So he he was like, So we go kind of overboard on all the extra services. I'm like, no.

SPEAKER_02:

Not if you want to know what's going on.

SPEAKER_01:

True. True. But I'm like, no, no, no, because we've had people spend over$3,000 on a single home inspection because they wanted a BOC test, mold test, formaldehyde, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Chimney scope, sewer scope.

SPEAKER_01:

We offered they they wanted. Yes, yes. So their their home inspection, I think maybe eleven hundred dollars, twelve hundred.

SPEAKER_02:

But they I don't remember which one this was, or was that a nice place?

SPEAKER_01:

You were not with me. Okay, that's why I don't remember it. But it was a nice place, decent, not a massive place, but beautiful location. That we did a chimney scope, sewer scope, inspection, uh radon. We did that as well. No, we did not do radon. We did not do radar. They were asking about that. But so anyway, VOC testing versus mold testing, they kind of thought it would do it did the same thing. No, it does not.

SPEAKER_02:

Not even remotely.

SPEAKER_01:

So VOC testing, how would you describe that? What is that mainly looking for?

SPEAKER_02:

So VOC stands for volatile organic compounds, which is basically chemicals. So anytime you've remodeled, anytime you've got a new house, anytime you've got some type of a chemical smell and you don't know what's going on, that's what VOC testing is for. The only time that VOC will cross over with mold is the fact that mold, as it is actively growing, releases their own form of a VOC that can be caught during a test.

SPEAKER_01:

So VOC is it's it's just chemicals that are evaporating.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

So if I have lighter, so if I had lighter fluid and I filled up my uh lighter. So I had a zippo. I filled up a zippo. Um did the test, and you can smell it. That's a VOC. It's probably like a petroleum product, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Butane?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know if you no, I don't know. I don't know what's you what what's the never tested it straight up, but no, and maybe we should. It would dump a petroleum product.

SPEAKER_02:

It would be a petroleum product.

SPEAKER_01:

So VOC, you'll find those in New houses and remodels because chemicals in production of paint, stains, vinyl planking for the floors, furniture, bedding, mattresses, foam has has a lot of chemicals in it.

SPEAKER_02:

So Jim and I, like about a year or so ago, had, you know, we moved and we were looking into what kind of a bed do we want. And one of the ones that we had looked at was purple. And, you know, I'd heard great stories, the mattress was awesome. But when I read the reviews, there was a significantly high amount of this thing stinks. I can't get rid of the smell, it's making me sick. And so we didn't get that, we got a different one. Fast forward to this year when we've done some stuff with a company who does well, well, you you had a friend, friend your friend Lori had bought one.

SPEAKER_01:

Had bought one, and you told me, like you asked her if it had a weird smell to it, and she said no. So we looked online, and purple now has low VOCs. So they probably realized that hey, we're getting a couple of weird odor, so they changed it. So that's a new change within the past year. So whenever time for us to get a new mattress, I'm I'm probably gonna go with purple. Well, I'm definitely gonna look at purple because now we have to worry about the weird chemicals in there because they're doing it safer.

SPEAKER_02:

There's also King Coil yet because I don't think they had like the foam stuff old school type thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Old school metal springs. Yes. Yep. So VOC looks for chemicals.

SPEAKER_02:

VOC looks for chemicals, mold looks for mold.

SPEAKER_01:

So, all right, so molds, it's a plant. I'll call it a plant.

SPEAKER_02:

It is, it's a plant.

SPEAKER_01:

And like apple trees, it doesn't always put out fruit. Like the spores. Right. Correct. So when we do air testing for molds, what you're doing is looking for spores that are floating around, or maybe little parts. If it if somebody wiped it up, you could have break break off little tiny. The hyphae, break those off, and they could be floating around.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, for example, Stachybocturus, you know, the whole black mold thing, it does not put off spores until the area is dried because the mold spores are too heavy to become airborne when it's growing and it's and it's wet. So based upon what's in the air or what's in your swab, that can tell you a lot about what's going on in the house. Like how long has it been wet? You know, if it's Sacchyboctorus, it's been wet for at least like a month and a half.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, because that needs a long-term high moisture for it to grow.

SPEAKER_02:

To grow. So mold testing can tell you a lot about what's going on in the house, what's going on in that area.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, mold testing can tell you the type of mold, how much and is it elevated compared to the outside? If you do an outside sample, and you should always do it outside. You should do an outside sample and then do it inside, and the lab will look at those and go, Yep, your inside is ten times as high as the outside, so you have a mold within the house. If they're like the same, no, no. And you're all good. You're not getting anything weird going on in your house. But the VOC testing, like you said, molds, when they grow, they make their own volatile organic compound called an MVOC. And when we do VOC testing, we can look for MVOCs and go, yes, you have mold actively growing in your house somewhere, which is typically whenever it's gonna be where there's a moisture issue, which is commonly crawl space or basement. Basement, yep, lower area, or maybe a roof week, but typically it's it's based on crawl space.

SPEAKER_00:

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SPEAKER_01:

So that's the main thing, the difference between VOC testing and mold testing. Now, years ago, telling some agent, he asked about VOC testing. I said, he asked what it was. I told him what it was. He's like, oh, here's another thing we can't do anything about. So I so I think he he was never gonna tell his clients about it because he didn't want them doing this test because he thought it'd be a deal killer, which it is not. So there are things that can be done to get rid of the VOCs in the air, but you have to know if they're there and verify that's what it is. And if you if we do VOC testing for you and it comes back high, at that point, then we can tell you what to do. Because the VOC test may just show, hey, there's there's mold growing somewhere. And they go, okay, now you gotta figure out where your moisture issue is and figure that out. Or what you and I will do if we do VOC testing or mold testing. See if you're doing mold testing, I will come in and do a quick inspection looking for just moisture in the concerning areas, and that way we can solidify and get them a good game plan for them. So I think that's about it. Really different between VOC test and mold testing. Mold tell you actually this type of mold, and if it's elevated, where the VUC test would tell you about the chemicals and tell you if there's mold growing in the environment, but it does not tell you the type of mold.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Now, there is also the mycotoxin testing that we haven't talked about much for people.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, so which is another so which is something that a lot of mold remediation companies do not want to talk about. They don't want to touch that. Right, and and I think third rail of responsibility.

SPEAKER_02:

I I can kind of understand why, because if you've come in and you've cleaned it up and you don't have any mold spores, but people are still getting sick, you know, as a remediation company, you're going, well, I did my job. There's there's no mold. True. But depending on the process that you used, you may have made it worse.

SPEAKER_01:

So and aren't those clients who the mold companies would refer to as difficult clients, and then they they just blow them off. They just bail them off. Yeah, bail them.

SPEAKER_02:

So so basically, mold is like any living creature and it's got a defense mechanism. But the defense mechanism that mold uses is a chemical, and it's you know, kind of think of chemical warfare. So you've got two different molds growing in the same space, and they each want to have that space to themselves because they're not very good shares. So mold A puts out one type of a chemical, mold B puts out another type of a chemical and they're competing against each other. That's going to show up in the air, or it can show up on a swab in that area. Or if you've got a remediation company that came in and they did not kill the mold first before they started scrubbing, that's another reason why you might have some mycotoxins in the air.

SPEAKER_01:

And the mycotoxin are basic chemical warfare from the molds against other molds or against anything that's touching touching it or or hurting it. So it's chemical warfare, and then some people are sensitive to the mycotoxin. So you can make you sick. You could have a house that you had it was remediated, they wiped it all down, or could be you could have a cellar, wiped it all down, got rid of it, painted over it, put bleach everywhere, everything to make it all look clean. Never killed it before they did that.

SPEAKER_02:

And now you've got mycotoxins.

SPEAKER_01:

And now there's mycotoxins floating around it. Mycotoxins, can you filter those out of the air with uh a HEPA filter?

SPEAKER_02:

They are too small, I believe.

SPEAKER_01:

They're too small.

SPEAKER_02:

What they need to do, so there's something about them being um hydroponic. They they're moisture attracting.

SPEAKER_01:

Hydro hydrophilic.

SPEAKER_02:

Hydrophilic. So there's there's a a new train of thought where you have to increase the humidity in the house, and then what you do is you run a dehumidifier and you run that out of the house or into a drain or whatever, and the mycotoxin stays attached to that water and it gets uh kicked out. So that's one of the ways I've heard of getting rid of it now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, mycotoxin it is a different beast to take care of. And it is only and it is a newer thing. It's been around for a long time. I mean, Department of Defense knows of it. No, yes, they know well. And then some of these mycotoxins are known to cause liver cancer. Is it aflatoxin? Yeah, I think that's one of them. That's a big one. Yeah, that was, I think. That's a very common research on this one. I think that one causes liver cancer. But those are different processes to clean up. There are chemicals and and procedures to clean that, but most mold remediation companies don't know squat about it. And they don't they don't even want to touch it because to them, these are difficult clients who can never be satisfied. Well, they're probably sensitive to mycotoxins, and you and the mold remediation companies are doing nothing to treat that. In fact, they may be making it worse than they did what you said by removing the mold without killing it, killing it prior to touching it. Yes. So that that's different from VLC and mold testing. I mean, they're both they're both important to do.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and and another, like a lot of the people that we've been dealing with lately are what they call sensitized individuals. So let's say you have somebody that's been in a house that had mold. They're then you've got, you know, like maybe VOCs coming in, and everything kind of snowballs and it taxes that body even more until they just have to completely step back and completely decontaminate that area that they're in and decontaminate their body. And it's not a slow process. I mean, there are so many things that they're still studying and still learning about with all this removal of the mycotoxins and the VOCs and everything. It's literally an up-and-coming field where they're they're doing a study now, normally is with uh medical doctors, and they're taking all this data and they're analyzing it. So there's gonna be some new stuff coming out in the next few years that are gonna be really interesting to see.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. So anyway, it's part of a home buying process. You don't always need to do these things, but if you're sensitive, yeah, it's a good idea. Or if you lived in your house for a while and you notice that you actually feel better when you're out of your house, you may you definitely probably should get your home tested. I would probably depend on how new the house is, but I would consider VOC testing because that tells you if it's chemicals or there's mold grown in the house. VOC is more like a row, more of a well-rounded test, but it still doesn't it doesn't do everything because it doesn't do formaldehyde, which you'll find in newer houses or you like remote. That's a separate test so and and that's a question. That's a question that we can ask about with a questionnaire that we go through to help determine what test would be best for people. But anyway, that's that's about it. VLC versus mold testing. Moles can be very important, but you need to know what they look for, and then we can help you determine which one's a better route for you.

SPEAKER_02:

I was just about to say, call us if you've got questions or if you know someone that's sick and having problems, it give us a call. We'll we'll talk and figure it out.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you can call Habitation Investigation, we can do those tests, or Environmental Consultants of Ohio, which our sister predominantly focuses on company, which predominantly does focus on more air quality and micro toxin testing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

So it focuses on that. But either company can do that. So that's about it. Thank you, everybody. Bye bye.

Contributor

Jim Troth

Host
Contributor

Laura Troth

Host