The thought of Mold in you home terrifies many people. And rightly so. Some Molds are very harmful.
The first instinct is to call a professional mold inspector who will likely charge hundreds of dollars to perform an inspection you can do yourself. In fact, the chances are you can and will do a better job. Inspectors want to get in, get out, and get paid. You have more time, more opportunity, and more at stake to poke into every corner and know the history. Be more thorough.
A mold inspector will likely recommend professional remediation. That's a big word that will cost Big money. Most likely, you will be able to do most or all the work.
As a kid, whenever I saw an old clock at a jumble sale or going cheap, I would buy it and take it apart to see how it worked. I don't think I ever got one back together again, but I enjoyed tinkering with them.
Twenty years later when I was getting married, now living in the USA, Auntie Florrie wrote to me saying I could now have my Grandfathers clock.
I arranged to have the clock shipped over and it was proudly placed in the entrance hall to my home. It was built in about 1880 in Maghull England by a local clockmaker, [before the electric light was invented], had a stately mahogany case, hand-painted dial and ran nicely.
After a few years, it stopped. I was frustrated that I didn't know what was wrong with it or how to get it going. I ended up having it serviced by a local repair shop and it ran again. I was fascinated with the clock.
In 1995, my family decided to spend a year in England including putting the kids in school. It was a big challenge to arrange to swap houses with an English family. Finally, we were settled, and the kids started school, my wife was volunteering at a local charity shop and suddenly I had time on my hands.
I read the paper that morning and came across an ad for a clock course starting nearby at Manchester City College. I called the college and they told me it was a three-year course, one day per week. I explained I was only in the country for one year, so I persuaded them to let me take the course, coming all three days.
I enjoyed the course and did very well. The final exam took several weeks, making a ‘suspension bridge' from scratch to exact specifications, restoring several old clocks and watches. I documented the process and took the extensive final written exam all set by BHI [British Horological Institute]. I did pass the exams and became a Horologist.
25 years later I teach clock repair classes and ‘pass it on'. This is the class workbook.
