Most of the mold that turns up in Nashville homes has a short, boring backstory: water got somewhere it shouldn't, and nobody dried it fast enough. Sometimes it is a slow drip behind a toilet. Sometimes it is a creek that came up into a crawl space. Often it is just a Middle Tennessee summer, when the air outside holds so much moisture that cool ducts, joists and closet walls stay damp for weeks. This site explains what a proper cleanup involves, how to tell whether you need testing at all, what jobs tend to cost, and how mold contractors are licensed in Tennessee. When you're ready, the phone line and form put you in touch with an independent mold company near you.
| Your situation | Read this |
|---|---|
| Spots or fuzz on drywall, ceilings, baseboards or under a sink | How mold remediation is done |
| A musty odor with nothing visible, or a home you're about to buy | Mold inspection and testing |
| A pipe burst, an appliance overflowed, or floodwater came in | Mold after a flood or leak |
| Not sure how serious the water was | Water damage mold risk checker |
| Trying to judge whether a quote is reasonable | Mold removal costs |
| Checking whether a company holds the right state license | Tennessee licensing and Metro permits |
| Wondering why the house feels damp every summer | Nashville humidity and mold |
The one part of the mold equation a homeowner controls is water, and Middle Tennessee supplies plenty of it. The National Weather Service office in Nashville lists a 1991–2020 normal of 50.51 inches of precipitation a year at the airport, with measurable rain of a tenth of an inch or more on about 79 days. May is the wettest month on average. Humidity matters even more than rain for houses that never flood: in NOAA's hourly climate normals for Nashville International Airport, every hour of June, July and August carries a normal dew point of 60°F or higher. Any surface cooler than the dew point collects water, which is why supply ducts, basement walls and the underside of floors sweat through the summer. The humidity guide has the month-by-month numbers.
Nashville can't talk about water damage without the first weekend of May 2010. The weather service recorded 13.57 inches of rain at the airport over May 1 and 2, more than double the old two-day record, and the Cumberland crested at 52.55 feet downtown, twelve and a half feet over flood stage. Mill Creek, Whites Creek, Richland Creek, Browns Creek and the Harpeth all ran far above their old marks. Metro Water Services later bought out and demolished more than 200 flooded homes. Metro's own flood brochure is blunt that every stream in the county can flood, so if you're near one, read mold after a flood or leak before you start tearing out drywall.
Sometimes. EPA treats roughly 10 square feet, about a three-foot square, as the line below which most homeowners can clean mold on their own, provided the water source is fixed and they wear gloves, goggles and an N-95. Bigger patches, mold inside walls or ductwork, and anything touched by sewage or floodwater are where EPA points people to professionals. Whatever the size, the goal is to physically remove the growth and dry the material, not to paint over it or fog it.
Tennessee's contractor board has a specialty classification for mold remediation, S-F, that applies once a contract reaches $25,000. In Davidson and Rutherford counties, smaller residential repair jobs between $3,000 and $24,999 fall under the state's home improvement license. The board's classification outline has no category for mold inspectors. Our licensing and permits guide covers what to check.
We take requests from across Davidson County, including Antioch, Madison, Hermitage, Bellevue, Donelson and Old Hickory, and from the nearby towns in the four neighboring counties: Franklin and Brentwood in Williamson County, Murfreesboro and Smyrna in Rutherford, Hendersonville and Gallatin in Sumner, and Mt. Juliet and Lebanon in Wilson. Mention your town and the company that calls back will be one that works there.
Sources: NWS Nashville, Nashville Climate Records; NOAA NCEI, hourly normals for Nashville International Airport; NWS Nashville, May 2010 Flood; Metro Office of Internal Audit, Metro Water Services Home Buyout Program audit (2014); Metro Water Services, 2026 flood risk brochure; EPA, A Brief Guide to Mold, Moisture and Your Home; Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors, classification outline and home improvement license.
No. It is a referral service. Your request goes to an independent mold company in the Nashville area, which inspects, quotes and performs the work under its own name and license.
EPA advises drying water-damaged materials within 24 to 48 hours to prevent growth, and its disaster cleanup guide says to assume mold is growing if a flooded home could not be dried in that window.
The Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors lists Mold Remediation (S-F) as a specialty classification, and a contractor license is required for projects of $25,000 or more. In Davidson and Rutherford counties, a home improvement license covers residential remodeling from $3,000 to $24,999.
We are a referral service and send nobody out ourselves. Leave your town and a line about what is going on, and a local, independent mold business will phone you to talk it through and quote. Water still running? Close the main shutoff or the fixture valve before anything else.