Over the past few years, the number of negligence law suits against building owners and managers, contractors, and their insurers claiming personal injury or property damage from mold has exploded. Insurance companies across the country have added riders to their homeowner policies, specifically excluding coverage for personal injury resulting from mold. Homeowners, apartment tenants, and many businesses, such as hotels and motels, also not covered, reacted by suing for negligence, leaving builders, contractors, building managers, and rental and commercial property owners highly vulnerable to litigation.

Increased litigation also has put emphasis on the ability to prove or disprove responsibility for water intrusion, a prerequisite for mold growth in buildings. Proving or disproving the cause and effect of mold damage, however, has been time consuming and expensive, because it first requires finding moisture intrusion in structures. Until recently, this search for moisture has combined visual inspection, experience in locating intrusive moisture, the use of contact moisture meters, and tearing out walls and ceilings.

Infrared thermography, the non-destructive diagnostic technique widely used by the military and law enforcement, can detect moisture invisible to the naked eye in building materials. The process is helping insurance companies and their clients reduce the cost and time required to establish liability for water intrusion and, thus, likely areas of mold contamination. A water damage evaluation can be conducted with an infrared (IR) camera in about one-fifth of the time that it takes with a moisture meter. Infrared technology also is more accurate and more sensitive.