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Serving Maryland
Stachybotrys handled to the same containment standard as everything else — because the response does not change with the species.
Free inspection in Maryland
Pick a time on the calendar, or call and we will get you in today.
Pick an inspection timeActive water right now? Call 202-798-7663 instead of booking a slot — mold starts in 24–48 hours.
When people say black mold they usually mean Stachybotrys chartarum, a dark, slimy-looking growth that colonizes chronically wet cellulose — the paper facing on drywall, cardboard, ceiling tile, the back of wallpaper. It needs sustained saturation rather than ambient humidity, which is why it tends to show up after a leak that ran for weeks.
It deserves professional handling. So does every other colonized building material, which is why we do not upsell species testing before starting. Find the water, contain the area, remove the substrate, correct the source, verify with an independent clearance test. The protocol is the same whether the lab comes back Stachybotrys or Cladosporium.
The Maryland suburbs give us the widest range of building types in the region, and each one fails differently. Silver Spring and Takoma Park run to pre-war bungalows with dirt-floor crawl spaces and no vapor barrier. Bethesda and Rockville are dense with 1990s and 2000s additions where the new roofline was tied into the old one badly and the valley flashing has been leaking into a knee wall ever since. Across Prince George's, the split-levels and ramblers of Hyattsville, Bowie, and Upper Marlboro were built with the finished lower level half a story down — so a single sump failure or a storm-driven backup wets a full floor of carpet, drywall, and framing in a night.
Pricing
Maryland jobs usually land mid-range. Because the rebuild has to be performed by an MHIC-licensed contractor, we price removal and reconstruction together rather than leaving you a second contract to go find.
| Scope | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Contained patch, hard surface | $600 – $1,500 |
| Single room with drywall removalPaper-faced drywall rarely survives | $1,800 – $4,500 |
| Finished basement | $4,500 – $13,000 |
| Species identification, if you want itPer sample — rarely changes the scope | $75 – $150 |
Typical range for this market — not a quote. Every property is different, and the number that matters is the written scope you get after the free inspection.
Code & regulation
Maryland does not license mold remediation as its own trade, but home improvement work on a Maryland residence must be performed by a contractor licensed by the Maryland Home Improvement Commission — and the repair and rebuild that follow remediation fall squarely inside that requirement. This distinction is where most Maryland mold jobs stall: a remediation-only outfit can legally tear out your wet drywall and then leave you with an open wall and a second contractor to find. Because we are a licensed general contractor first, tear-out, the repair that stopped the water, and the rebuild sit under one contract.
Montgomery County's Department of Permitting Services and Prince George's County's Department of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement handle building permits for their jurisdictions, with Howard and Charles counties running their own. Remediation does not require a permit; structural repair and reconstruction involving plumbing or electrical generally do. Montgomery County in particular enforces its own housing standards on top of the state code, which matters for rental property.
Maryland law treats serious mold as a condition affecting habitability, and county housing codes — Montgomery County's in particular — give tenants a route to enforcement when a landlord does not act on written notice. As in the other two jurisdictions, the leverage on both sides is documentation: dated written notice from the tenant, and a dated independent assessment and clearance report from the landlord.
Before we arrive
In order. The first two matter more than everything after them.
Why Maryland specifically
The Maryland suburbs give us the widest range of building types in the region, and each one fails differently. Silver Spring and Takoma Park run to pre-war bungalows with dirt-floor crawl spaces and no vapor barrier. Bethesda and Rockville are dense with 1990s and 2000s additions where the new roofline was tied into the old one badly and the valley flashing has been leaking into a knee wall ever since. Across Prince George's, the split-levels and ramblers of Hyattsville, Bowie, and Upper Marlboro were built with the finished lower level half a story down — so a single sump failure or a storm-driven backup wets a full floor of carpet, drywall, and framing in a night.
How the work runs
No hand-offs, no second contractor to hire for the rebuild, and no testing done by the same people who did the removal.
A licensed technician walks the property with moisture meters and a thermal camera, finds the water source, maps the affected square footage, and photographs everything your insurer will ask about.
You get a written scope and line-item estimate the same day, built in the estimating format carriers expect — plus the photo log and moisture readings that support the claim.
The work area is sealed in 6-mil poly with a negative-air machine and HEPA filtration so spores are not pushed into the rest of the house while we work.
Non-salvageable porous material is cut out and bagged, framing and salvageable assemblies are HEPA-vacuumed and treated with an EPA-registered antimicrobial, then the space is dried to a documented moisture target.
An independent hygienist samples the area and issues a clearance report. We do not test our own work — the document is yours, and it is what a buyer, a lender, or a tenant will accept.
Remediation without repair guarantees a callback. We correct the roof, siding, window, flashing, or grading failure that let water in — then put the drywall, paint, and flooring back.
Straight answers
It can cause real respiratory irritation, and reactions are worse for people with asthma, allergies, or compromised immunity. We are contractors, not physicians — if anyone in the house has symptoms, that is a conversation with a doctor. What we can tell you is that the building material needs to come out regardless.
Not to decide what to do. Colonized porous material comes out either way. A test is worth paying for when someone else — a landlord, a buyer, an insurer — needs to be convinced.
It depends on the water event, not the species. A burst pipe or a storm-driven roof leak is usually covered; a slow drip you knew about for two years usually is not. Most policies also cap mold at a sublimit. We tell you where your claim is likely to land before starting.
What we do
Every service page carries the typical price range, what the code requires in that jurisdiction, and the steps to take before anyone arrives.
Moisture mapping, thermal imaging, and independent lab sampling — so you know what you have before anyone sells you a remediation.
See pricing & steps →Containment, negative air, removal, and independent clearance — with the leak that caused it repaired under the same contract.
See pricing & steps →Stachybotrys handled to the same containment standard as everything else — because the response does not change with the species.
See pricing & steps →The most common mold job in the DMV — finished lower levels built tight against below-grade block, with no drainage correction.
See pricing & steps →Vented dirt crawl spaces in a Mid-Atlantic summer are mold factories. Removal, then encapsulation so it stays fixed.
See pricing & steps →Almost always a roof leak or a ventilation failure. We remove the growth and correct whichever one caused it.
See pricing & steps →24/7 emergency extraction and structural drying — the 24-to-48 hour window where a water loss has not become a mold loss yet.
See pricing & steps →Growth in the air handler or duct liner does not stay in one room — it gets distributed to every register in the building.
See pricing & steps →Free, written, no obligation. If it turns out you do not have a mold problem, we will tell you that and leave — it costs you nothing to find out.