ERMI and HERTSMI-2: What Dust Testing Can and Cannot Tell You in Maryland
ERMI and HERTSMI-2 are the dust tests most CIRS-literate physicians reference. This guide explains what they measure, how to collect a sample that means something, how to read the scores, and the honest limitations nobody selling you a kit will mention.
What Maryland changes about the picture
Humid mid-Atlantic with muggy summers. Basement humidity in humid summers dominates; older rowhouse party walls add shared-moisture complexity.
Protocols are national; moisture is local. In Maryland, the pressure a building lives under comes from specific, predictable directions — and this protocol should be read with those directions in mind, because they decide where the risk concentrates, which assemblies fail first, and what a defensible local scope looks like.
The MD moisture drivers to read this against
- Summer humidity in basements
- Coastal and tidal flooding in low areas
- Ice damming in the west
What never changes — anywhere
The sequence holds in Maryland exactly as it does everywhere else: locate the moisture, characterize the exposure with testing collected correctly, fix the water before touching the mold, remediate under verified containment, fine-clean, and verify independently. Every shortcut this industry sells is a reordering of that list.
The full protocol below covers the national playbook in depth — read it alongside the MD context above.
Read the full protocol: ERMI and HERTSMI-2: What Dust Testing Can and Cannot Tell You →
- What these tests actually measure
- Why dust beats a single air sample
- Collection determines whether the result means anything
- Reading the numbers without panic
- The honest limitations
- When to retest
Maryland questions
Does this protocol change in Maryland?
The sequence never changes — locate moisture, test honestly, fix water before mold, remediate under containment, verify independently. What changes in Maryland is where the moisture pressure comes from: summer humidity in basements That determines where instruments go first and which assemblies earn suspicion.
What should Maryland households check first?
Start with the failure modes this housing stock is known for. Basement humidity in humid summers dominates; older rowhouse party walls add shared-moisture complexity. A moisture-focused assessment that ignores those patterns is guessing.
Can I get matched with a vetted provider in Maryland?
Yes — matching runs in all 50 states. Every provider is vetted on containment discipline, fine-particle competence, and willingness to be independently verified. Matching is free for households.
THIS PROTOCOL IN OTHER PRIORITY MARKETS → California · Colorado · Florida · Nevada · Texas
NEXT IN THE MD LIBRARY → The Mold Inspection, Done Right: A Homeowner's Field Manual in Maryland