Mold remediation cost dataset

The ten-square-foot step, priced

National figures, before any regional adjustment, for mixed surfaces in a basement over a structure that is still wet, with the water source repaired and the wall put back. Only the affected area changes down this column.

One square foot is the difference between $2,639 and $3,764, a jump of $1,125. It is not a rounding artefact: containment, the negative air machine, its filter media, the teardown and the supervisor’s written scope all switch on together. The threshold is published in EPA, Mold Cleanup in Your Home, retrieved 2026-08-22. The prices on either side of it are ours.

What the surface changes

Sixty square feet in a basement, national figures. Porous material is not cleaned, it is removed, and it is cut back a foot past the visible edge — which is why a small stain fills bags and why the replacement area never matches what you could see.

What goes back is a separate question from what comes out, and the model keeps them apart because they are different trades: drywall or ceiling tile or carpet and pad. Pricing board where carpet came out would give a perfectly coherent budget for a different job, which is the quietest way a calculator can be wrong.

Where the work happens

Access multiplies hours and never material. A square foot of board costs the same in an attic as in a basement; what changes is the time of the person tearing it out on their knees. Attics and crawl spaces move faster than the multiplier suggests overall, because there is no furniture to move out and wrap.

Line items

Conditional lines appear only when the corresponding answer is yes, and several of them go to zero below EPA’s threshold rather than being charged quietly anyway. Labour lines carry the trade whose published wage pays for them.

The reasoning behind each figure

Written out so a remediation contractor can point at the exact assumption that is wrong. A number with no reasoning behind it cannot be corrected.

Moisture survey, containment build and equipment setup

• Below EPA's 10 square foot threshold there is nothing to build, so this is two hours: read the walls with a moisture meter, mask the area and go. EPA says a patch that size can in most cases be handled by the homeowner, and this page shows what changes the moment it is not.
• From 10 square feet up there is a barrier to build, and above 100 square feet the model steps up to a sealed enclosure with an entry chamber. The first step is EPA's. The second one is ours, and it is an estimate, not a citation.
• Half of this line is the part nobody itemises: finding where the wet actually stops, which is normally further than where the stain stops.
• BLS publishes no mold remediation technician. 47-4041, Hazardous Materials Removal Workers, is the closest published occupation, and BLS publishes it for only 161 of 530 areas, so in most places the engine falls back to the wider construction group and the page says so. The wage is official; the hours are our estimate.

Polyethylene containment, zippered access and floor protectionestimated, ±55%

• 6-mil sheeting, tape, a zipper door and a walk-off mat. The bottom of the band is a single taped layer across an opening; the top is a full enclosure with a two-stage entry chamber and hardboard over a finished floor.
• Barrier area is not moldy area: you sheet the walls, the ceiling line and the floor of a room in order to isolate a patch inside it, which is why the multiplier is two to three times the affected surface and why there is a floor below which it does not go.
• Under EPA's 10 square foot line this goes to zero rather than being quietly charged anyway: that is the size EPA says can in most cases be handled by the homeowner, and building a sealed enclosure around it is not what that job looks like.

HEPA negative air machine and ductingestimated, ±37%

• A blower pulling air out of the sealed area through a HEPA filter so the work area sits at lower pressure than the rest of the house. It is what stops demolition turning one room's problem into the whole house's problem.
• The FEMA Schedule of Equipment Rates, which is where every machine rate on this site comes from, has no row for this. Rather than borrow a rate that does not fit, this is a declared estimate: a daily rental at the bottom, a contractor's daily charge at the top. The filters are a separate line because they are consumed per job, not per day.
• Days run while the crew works plus one more, because the machine keeps running after they have gone home and until the area is checked.

HEPA cartridge, pre-filters and vacuum bagsestimated, ±52%

• Consumed per job, not per day, which is why it is not buried inside the machine's daily rate: a HEPA cartridge is killed by one dusty demolition regardless of how many days it ran.
• Covers the share of the cartridge this job uses, two or three pre-filter changes and the vacuum bags, which are three to six on a normal job at eight to twelve dollars each.
• Zero below the 10 square foot line, where there is no machine and a household vacuum is the wrong tool anyway.

LGR dehumidifier and air moversestimated, ±42%

• The bottom of the band is one low-grain refrigerant dehumidifier and two air movers; the top is a larger unit and five movers. FEMA publishes no rate for either, so this is a declared estimate.
• Days are set by how wet the structure is, not by how many hours of demolition there were. That distinction matters: a large patch whose leak was fixed months ago can be dry, and a small one over soaked framing is not.
• Where the structure is already dry this line goes to zero rather than being charged by default. Drying is not a finishing touch: material that is still wet is the reason the mold started, and remediating a cavity that is still wet is work you pay for twice. The day counts are ours, not a published figure.

Daily monitoring while the equipment runs

• Every restoration firm bills a daily visit while the equipment is set up: moisture readings, pre-filter change, a check that the enclosure is still holding pressure, and a signed log. It is on real invoices and on almost no published cost guide.
• An hour and a half per equipment day from the second day on. The first day is already inside the setup line.
• Metro-adjusted wage from official BLS data; the hours are our estimate.

Strip out the containment and bag the plastic

• Building the barrier is in the setup line; taking it down is not the same work and is not free. The sheeting is peeled inwards so that what has settled on it stays inside, bagged, and the entry chamber and floor board come out with it.
• Scaled on barrier area rather than moldy area, because that is what has to be handled: 0.004 hours per square foot of plastic, plus an hour to clean the cut line.
• Metro-adjusted wage from official BLS data; the hours are our estimate.

Respirators, suits, gloves and gogglesestimated, ±51%

• The bottom of the band is the minimum kit for a small cleanup: an N-95 respirator, gloves and goggles, disposable and thrown away at the end of the day.
• The top is a half-face elastomeric with P100 cartridges, a disposable coverall and taped nitrile gloves, which is what work inside full containment gets. Priced per worker-day because that is how it is consumed.
• The respirator is the cheap part. Behind it sit a written respiratory protection programme, medical evaluation and fit testing, all of them the employer's obligation and none of them free. That is one real reason a remediation firm's day costs more than a handyman's, and it is a cost of doing the job properly rather than a corner to cut.

Sheeting, moving blankets and tape to protect contentsestimated, ±60%

• The goods side of clearing a room before demolition starts: polyethylene sheeting, moving blankets, tape and hardboard for the route out to the door.
• The bottom of the band is a couple of rolls of sheeting and a few blankets over what cannot be moved; the top is a fully wrapped room with the exit route protected end to end.
• Manufactured goods bought nationally, so this line carries no regional adjustment. The hours that go with it are the line below, and those do move with the metro wage index.
• This is protecting and wrapping only, not cleaning or replacing. Soft contents that were in contact with mold are a separate decision and are excluded below.

Construction labourer: move the contents out and wrap what stays

• Furniture out, whatever stays wrapped and sealed, and a protected route from the containment to the door. It is on nearly every real invoice and on almost no published cost guide.
• Two to four hours of a labourer for a full lot, which is where most of the money in this work sits: it is time, not goods, and that is why the regional wage index moves it.
• A bathroom is charged at six tenths of the lot, because a toilet, a vanity and some towels are not a furnished living room and should not cost the same to move.
• An attic or a crawl space has nothing to move, so the line goes to zero rather than being averaged in.
• The wage is official BLS data for construction labourers adjusted to your metro area; the hours are our estimate.

Remove affected material, HEPA vacuum and damp wipe

• The remediation itself: cutting out and bagging what is porous, HEPA vacuuming what is not, then damp wiping and vacuuming again. Porous material carries more hours per square foot because it is removed rather than cleaned, and because it is removed past the visible edge.
• The access factor is time and never material. Working on your knees in a crawl space in a suit and respirator with a hose behind you is roughly half the speed of working standing up in a basement, and that is the whole of the difference.
• The six-hour base is mobilisation and the first pass at the area, because nobody sends a crew out for twenty minutes of work.
• Wage from official BLS data adjusted to your metro area. The productivity figures are our estimate: 0.15 hours per square foot on porous material, 0.115 mixed and 0.08 on hard surfaces, and there is no public source for them.

Detergent and wiping mediaestimated, ±53%

• Detergent and water on hard surfaces is the bottom of this band: a bottle of detergent, a bucket and cloths. The top is a commercial cleaner and the microfibre a large job gets through.
• Charged over the surface that is CLEANED, not over the surface that is removed. You do not scrub drywall that is going to be cut out and bagged ten minutes later, and charging both over the same square feet would be billing the same work twice.
• A floor of 40 square feet exists because even a tiny job buys a bottle of detergent and a pack of cloths.
• This line is not priced as if the job were pouring bleach on it. Bleach on a porous surface wets the material and leaves what is rooted inside it, which is the opposite of the goal, and no amount of it replaces removing what has to be removed.

Antimicrobial coating for cleaned framingestimated, ±59%

• A gallon covers around 200 square feet and costs $35 to $60, which is the bottom of the band. A pigmented stain-blocking product covers 100 to 150 square feet a gallon and sits at the top.
• Goods shipped nationally, so the coating itself carries no regional adjustment. The hours to put it on are the line below, and those do move with the metro wage index.
• Worth saying plainly because the industry does not: a coating over material that is still wet or still contaminated is decoration. It is priced here because it is on nearly every invoice, not because it substitutes for removal and drying. A quote that leads with the encapsulant and is thin on containment and drying days is the quote to ask questions about.

Hazmat technician: mask, spray and back-roll the coating

• Masking what is not being coated, spraying or rolling the framing and then going back over it, all inside containment and with the suit and respirator on.
• Charged over the affected area rather than over the square feet that actually take coating, because the masking, the moving about and the second pass scale with the room and not with the paint.
• The wage is official BLS data for hazardous materials removal workers adjusted to your metro area. The figure of 0.012 hours per square foot is our estimate and has no published source.

Final HEPA detail clean of the area and the exit route

• Different from the damp wipe of the affected surface, which is already in the removal line. This is the last pass with the HEPA vacuum over floors, ledges, frames and the route out, before anyone is called in to verify.
• It appears as its own line on real invoices precisely because it is what decides whether the verification passes first time, and because it gets repeated if it does not.
• Metro-adjusted wage from official BLS data; the hours are our estimate.

Double-bag debris and haul awayestimated, ±42%

• Priced as ordinary construction and demolition disposal, which is what this debris normally is; where a local rule says otherwise that rule wins and this figure is low. What makes it dearer than throwing drywall in a skip is that it is double-bagged and wiped down before it leaves containment, and those hours are in the removal line.
• The volume starts from weight, not from guesswork: half-inch drywall runs about 1.6 pounds a square foot, and a cubic yard of broken drywall compacted in a container is 400 to 500 pounds. On weight alone that is 250 to 310 square feet of board to the cubic yard.
• The figure actually used is 150 square feet to the yard, and the difference is deliberate rather than arithmetic: this debris goes into the container double-bagged, the bags do not compact, and the insulation, plastic and suits go in with it. Bagged volume, not compacted weight, is what gets billed. Where a job is bagged loosely the real number is worse than 150 and where the container is walked on it is better; it is our estimate and there is no published figure for it.
• The band is mostly the container plus the tipping fee, which varies by county with no national source. Bagged debris and consumables from a job where nothing was torn out still fill half a yard, which is the floor.

Supervisor: written scope and sign-off

• Ninety minutes from 10 to 100 square feet: nobody signs a job of that size without a written scope, because it is what defines what was contracted and what the verification is measured against.
• Above 100 square feet it grows with the job, because somebody has to write the protocol, check that the enclosure holds pressure and put a name to the sign-off.
• Below EPA's 10 square foot line it is zero, because that is the size EPA says can in most cases be handled by the homeowner, and charging supervision on it would inflate every small job.
• Metro-adjusted wage from official BLS data for construction supervisors; the hours are our estimate.

Sheeting, tape and a replacement filter to seal the HVAC openingsestimated, ±57%

• Plastic and tape over every supply and return inside the work area, plus a replacement filter for the one that was on the unit when it was shut down.
• The band is low on purpose and the line is small on purpose: almost none of the cost of isolating a system is goods, and the part that carries the money is the hours in the line below.
• Sealing is not the same decision as cleaning. Sealing happens whenever there are ducts inside containment; cleaning is the separate line below.

HVAC mechanic: shut the system down and seal every opening

• Where supplies or returns sit inside the work area the system is shut down and every opening sealed, otherwise negative pressure pulls contaminated air into the ductwork and distributes it to rooms that had no problem at all.
• Two or three hours of a mechanic: locking the unit out, sealing the openings inside containment and putting the system back into service afterwards.
• The wage is official BLS data for heating and air conditioning mechanics adjusted to your metro area; the hours are our estimate.

Access panels, brush heads and a filter changeestimated, ±56%

• The goods a duct clean consumes: access panels cut into the trunk and closed back up, brush heads and whips for the runs, and a new filter on the way out.
• The bottom of the band is one accessible run on a small system; the top is several runs on a system that has to be opened in more than one place. Cleaning ducts is overwhelmingly hours, and those are the line below.
• Insulated flexible duct that has got wet is not in here. Wet duct liner cannot be cleaned and has to come out, which is a separate quote from a sheet metal contractor.

HVAC mechanic: mechanically clean the affected duct runs

• Off by default and only priced where there is visible mold growth INSIDE the ducts, not merely a register in the same room. It is a service that gets oversold, and the model does not sell it.
• Six to nine hours of a mechanic: cutting access, brushing and vacuuming the affected runs under negative pressure, then closing everything back up and changing the filter.
• The wage is official BLS data for heating and air conditioning mechanics adjusted to your metro area; the hours are our estimate.

Repair the water source: accessible plumbing partsestimated, ±73%

• An allowance, and labelled as one, defined narrowly on purpose: a supply hose or braided connector, a shut-off valve, a trap, a toilet wax ring, sealing a wall penetration. The bottom of the band really is a fifteen-dollar hose plus fittings; the top is a valve and a fixture connection replaced properly.
• A rebuilt shower pan, tiling, waterproofing, a roof or a foundation crack are NOT in this allowance. They are their own projects, they are not two hours of a plumber, and they are in the exclusions rather than hidden inside a band wide enough to swallow them.
• The reason the line exists at all is that a remediation quote which omits the leak is not cheaper, it is incomplete. Here the omission is visible instead of assumed.

Plumber: trace and repair the leak

• Four hours, not the two a minimum call-out suggests, because a leak that has run long enough to grow visible mold is usually not where the stain is. Find it, fix it, then watch it run.
• Kept separate from the parts allowance so that neither hides the other. The wage is official BLS data for plumbers adjusted to your metro area; the hours are our estimate.
• Where the source is not plumbing at all — condensation, a roof, groundwater through a foundation wall — this is the wrong trade and the exclusions say so instead of quietly charging for it.

Replacement drywall or ceiling tile, insulation, tape and finishestimated, ±51%

• Board, screws, tape, compound, primer and paint, plus batt insulation where a cavity was opened. The bottom of the band is replacement ceiling tile or an unfinished basement wall; the top is a finished room with trim to match and a ceiling that has to be textured back in.
• Manufactured goods shipped nationally, so this line is not adjusted by region. What changes between markets is the labour to hang it, and that is the two lines below.
• Priced over the removal area rather than the moldy area, because the hole is bigger than the stain by the same cut-back factor that drives the disposal volume.

Drywall and ceiling tile installer: hang and finish

• The remediation contract normally ends at the verification, with the cavity open and the studs bare. This is the second contract, and on a large job it is close to half the money. It is the commonest reason a finished job costs more than the quote that was signed.
• Eight hours of base, because a patch is three visits with drying time between coats and nobody finishes drywall in one, plus 0.06 hours a square foot for hanging, three coats and sanding.
• Painting is NOT in these hours: it is a different trade and it is the line below, at a painter's wage rather than an installer's.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metro area; the hours are our estimate. BLS publishes this occupation for only 209 of 530 areas, so in most places the engine falls back to the wider construction group and the page says so.

Painter: prime and paint back

• Separated from the drywall hours because it is a separate occupation with its own published wage, and this site names the trade behind every hour rather than billing them all at whichever rate is highest.
• Two hours of masking and set-up plus 0.015 hours a square foot for primer and two coats.
• Paint goes on a surface that is clean and dry, and not before. Painting over mold is not a repair; it is a way of finding out again in six months, and it is the commonest thing done instead of everything else on this page.

Replacement carpet and padestimated, ±45%

• Where what came out was carpet and underlay, what goes back is flooring, not board. Pricing drywall here would give a perfectly coherent budget for a different job, which is the quietest way a calculator can be wrong.
• Goods only: the band runs from builder-grade carpet and pad at the bottom to a mid-range carpet with a moisture-resistant pad at the top, which is what a basement usually gets the second time round. The fitting is the line below, so that the two are not hidden inside one square-foot rate.
• Manufactured goods shipped nationally, so this line is not adjusted by region.

Fit replacement carpet and pad

• Three hours of base plus 0.03 hours a square foot: lay the pad, stretch and trim the carpet, and refit the transitions. Faster per square foot than drywall because there is nothing to sand and nothing to wait for.
• BLS publishes no separate wage for floor covering installers in this index, so the hours are billed at the construction labourer wage. That is a modelling choice and it is stated rather than hidden.
• Metro-adjusted wage from official BLS data; the hours are our estimate.

Independent post-remediation inspection and reportestimated, ±44%

• A visual inspection, moisture readings and a written report by somebody who did not do the remediation. Independence is the whole value: a check carried out by the firm that did the work is the examiner marking their own paper.
• One fee per job, not one per zone. The second area does not need another visit, another report and another write-up; it needs more samples, and those are the line below.
• This is a third-party professional fee and, unlike every hour on this page, it is NOT adjusted by the regional wage index, because BLS publishes no occupation for indoor-environmental consultants and we will not attach the number to an occupation that is not theirs.

Verification samples and laboratory analysisestimated, ±45%

• Priced per sample, because that is what actually scales with the size of the job: a bigger area is sampled in more places, but it is still one visit and one report.
• Two samples on a small job, one more for every 150 square feet of affected area. The band covers collection and the laboratory fee.
• Sampling before the work is a different question from sampling after it, and this page only prices the second. Where mold is already visible, what is left to establish is whether the cleanup worked, not whether there is mold.

Not included in this dataset

Vermiculite insulation and any suspected asbestos

Not priced here, on purpose. Vermiculite loose-fill and older building materials can contain asbestos, which has to be established by testing before anything is disturbed and, if present, handled by a licensed abatement contractor under its own rules. Putting a cheap number on that work would be worse than putting no number on it. If either is in the area, stop and get it tested before any demolition.

Anything to do with health

This page prices a construction job and nothing else. It does not say whether mold in your house is making anyone ill, how much exposure matters or what any symptom means, because that is a question for a doctor and we are not one. EPA and CDC publish what is known about mold and health and both are linked from this page; anyone worried about someone's health should be talking to a health professional, not to a cost calculator.

What your insurance will or will not pay

We do not model it and we will not guess at it. What a policy covers is written in that policy, and the only people who can tell you how it applies to your loss are your insurer and your own agent. The one national fact worth knowing is FEMA's: most homeowners insurance does not cover flood damage, which is why water that arrived from outside and water that arrived from a pipe are different conversations.

Investigative testing to find hidden mold

Thermal imaging, borescope inspection of wall cavities and air sampling to locate growth you cannot see are a separate service from an independent consultant. This figure prices the verification AFTER the work, not the search before it.

Emergency water extraction

If there is standing water right now, that is water mitigation: a different crew, often within hours and at emergency rates. This figure assumes the flooding is over and the mold is what was left behind. Getting water out within 24 to 48 hours is also the cheapest way to avoid needing this page at all.

Structural repair, and the repairs the allowance does not cover

Rotted sill plates, joist ends and subfloor are carpentry with their own engineering questions. So are a rebuilt shower pan, tiling, waterproofing a foundation wall, a roof and exterior grading: the plumbing allowance on this page covers accessible plumbing parts and nothing else. This is also why waiting gets expensive, because drywall is cheap and framing is not.

Contents that cannot be saved

Upholstered furniture, mattresses, carpet pad, cardboard, books and papers that were in contact with mold generally cannot be cleaned to a state anyone is comfortable with. Deciding what goes and replacing it is a separate cost and a personal one, and averaging it into a national figure would be meaningless.

Permit fees and licensing

Some jurisdictions require a permit for the reconstruction and a few license mold remediation itself. Fees vary with no national source, so they are excluded and said rather than averaged into the figure.