Mold removal and remediation in Miami-Dade

Mold removal in Florida is a licensed trade with rules about who does what. This page explains what a licensed remediation actually involves, what the 10 square foot rule means for your job, and what you should expect to see on the invoice, so you know what you are buying before anyone opens a wall.

Call or send the form with what you see, what you smell, and since when. A licensed remediator who serves your area calls you back to set the visit, and tells you whether the job also needs a separately licensed assessor first.

The 10 square foot rule

Florida Statutes Chapter 468, Part XVI, requires a state license to assess or remediate mold covering more than 10 square feet, a patch roughly 3 by 3 feet. Under that, no license is required and the EPA’s own guidance is that a homeowner can clean it: detergent and water on hard surfaces, dry it, fix the moisture, watch it. Over that, the work belongs to a licensed mold remediator (MRSR), and by law the company that assessed it cannot be the company that removes it.

The threshold is about the growth, not the house. Ten small patches in ten rooms add up. And growth on drywall, insulation, or carpet pad is not cleanable at any size; the material comes out.

What a licensed remediation looks like

• Containment: plastic sheeting sealing the work area, and a negative air machine with a HEPA filter so that air flows into the room, not out of it. Without this, cutting drywall spreads spores through the house and the AC.
• Removal of porous materials that cannot be cleaned: drywall, insulation, carpet and pad, ceiling tile, the backs of cabinets. Bagged inside the containment.
• Cleaning of what stays: framing, block, concrete, tile. HEPA vacuuming and damp wiping. Wire brushing or sanding on wood where growth is embedded.
• Drying to the numbers in the protocol, with moisture readings logged. The source of the water fixed, or scheduled with the right trade.
• No fogging as a substitute for removal, no ozone with people in the house, and no bleach on porous material. A remediator who leads with a fogging machine is selling a product, not doing a remediation.
• Photos and readings for your file. Then the walls stay open until a separately licensed assessor clears the work, if the protocol calls for clearance.

When you need an assessor first

For any job over 10 square feet, a licensed mold assessor (MRSA) inspects, finds the moisture source, and writes the remediation protocol: what comes out, how far past the visible growth, what containment, what clearance. The remediator follows it. This is how Florida keeps the company that says "it is bad" from being the company paid to fix it.

The line can send both. If a remediation company offers you an inspection at no cost and their own crew, ask who the licensed assessor is and check both numbers on MyFloridaLicense.com.

What drives the cost

We do not set or quote prices. What the remediator’s estimate is built on: square footage of growth and of material coming out, whether containment and negative air are needed, how long it was wet, whether the AC system is involved, and whether testing before and after is part of the protocol. A written estimate comes after they have seen it, and price, timing, and warranty are between you and the remediator.