Mold Removal in Idalou, TX

Caprock Mold Pros handles mold removal in Idalou, TX and the farming country around it. Idalou is thirteen miles northeast of Lubbock straight out US-62/82, so response time is short. The inspection is free.

Idalou is an older town than the newer suburbs on the west side of Lubbock, and the housing reflects that. A lot of the homes here were built in the middle of the last century, and a fair number are older than that. Old houses in a dry climate are not automatically mold-free. They are just quieter about it.

What Age Does to a House Out Here

Plumbing that has been in service too long

Galvanized supply lines, cast iron drains and early copper all eventually give up. On the South Plains the soil movement accelerates it, because caliche and clay shift with moisture and stress every joint they touch. Failures in old plumbing are rarely dramatic. They seep. A drain line that weeps under a bathroom puts water into a wall cavity or a crawl space continuously, and the first sign is usually a smell rather than a stain.

Additions and remodels stacked over decades

Idalou homes tend to have history. A back porch enclosed in 1970. A bathroom added in 1985. A kitchen redone in 2004. Every one of those transitions is a place where two roofs meet, where two foundations meet, or where somebody tied new plumbing into old. Those junctions are where water finds a way in, and they are the first places we look.

Original windows and settling

Old single-pane windows and doors that have shifted with the house let wind-driven rain past the trim. On a west or north wall in a spring storm, that is enough to wet the framing inside the wall.

Farm Buildings and Ag Structures

Idalou is surrounded by working farmland, and a good share of our calls out here involve buildings other than houses. Equipment sheds, shops, packing and storage buildings, and old barns all have the same core problem: a steel roof over an uninsulated or lightly insulated space condenses on cold nights and rains on whatever is underneath.

If you have got product, feed, seed or equipment stored under a metal roof and you are finding growth on it, we will look at the whole building envelope, not just the affected material. Cleaning it and leaving the condensation problem in place means doing it again next winter.

Irrigation is the other one. Lines, pumps and their housings put water where it does not belong when a fitting goes. That water can undercut a foundation or run under a slab for a long time.

Hail and the Roof Problem

The stretch between Lubbock and Ralls takes its share of spring storms. Hail comes through in March, April, May and June and it does not always leave obvious damage. The dangerous kind is the bruised shingle that keeps shedding water for another eight months and then fails during a long soaking rain, dumping water down onto the decking and the insulation.

If your roof got hit and you never had somebody up in the attic afterward, that is worth a free look. Attic mold is the single most common thing we find in Idalou homes, and the cost of dealing with it goes up every month the decking stays wet.

Freeze Breaks

Hard freezes are hard on older houses. Plumbing runs through unheated additions, in exterior walls with little insulation, in crawl spaces and out to well houses and barns. When one lets go, the repair is the easy part. The problem is that almost nobody dries the wall cavity afterward. A plumber fixes the line, a fan runs for two days, the carpet feels dry, and the framing inside the wall stays wet.

That is where the calls in April come from. If you had a freeze break, call us about drying before you close anything up.

Services We Bring to Idalou

Same services and same pricing as Lubbock, no travel charge.

• Mold inspection and testing
• Black mold removal
• Attic mold removal
• Crawl space mold removal for pier and beam homes
• Bathroom and shower mold
• Air quality testing
• Water damage cleanup and drying
• Mold damage repair and reconstruction
• Commercial and agricultural buildings

Straight Talk, Free Look

We are not going to talk you into a job you do not need. If what you have is surface mildew on a bathroom wall and a fan that needs replacing, we will tell you that and you will not owe us anything for the visit.

Call (806) 615-4601. Day or night.

Before You Cut Into Anything

If you have found growth and you are tempted to start pulling drywall yourself, two cautions specific to older Idalou homes.

First, pre-1980 construction frequently contains asbestos in popcorn ceiling texture, floor tile, tile mastic and pipe wrap, and homes built before 1978 may have lead paint. Demolition in those materials without testing creates a bigger problem than the mold. We check for the age of the finishes before anybody swings a hammer.

Second, cutting into a wall without containment spreads spores through the whole house. Once that happens you are cleaning three rooms instead of one. If you are going to open it up, open it up with plastic in place and air moving out, not in.

Call us and we will tell you which of those applies to your house. It costs nothing to ask.