For people who live here · Coastal Oregon
We're Carla and Gabe — a husband-and-wife team based in Warrenton. For ten years we've helped families on this coast figure out what's actually going on inside their homes, and quietly take care of it.
We never want anyone to be scared into testing. We want you to know. So this page is laid out the way our conversations usually go: what you're noticing, what it might be, and what — if anything — we'd do about it.
There's a musty smell upstairs and I can't find where it's coming from.
Coastal houses breathe damp air — even well-built ones. A musty smell almost always means moisture somewhere it shouldn't be, and mold growing on a surface you can't see. Sometimes it's in the bathroom fan ducting, sometimes in the attic, sometimes inside a wall cavity. We'll find it.
We'd start with · Visual inspection + air sample if needed
My neighbor tested high for radon. Should we worry?
Maybe — radon levels can vary house-to-house on the same street depending on the foundation and the soil underneath. The only way to know your number is to test. We use a continuous monitor for 48 hours; if your number is below 2.0 pCi/L, we'll tell you to leave it alone.
We'd start with · 48-hour radon test, $$
Everyone's been getting headaches since we moved in.
New-house symptoms are real and almost always solvable. Could be VOCs from new flooring, could be a ventilation problem, could be the previous owner's something. We do indoor air quality testing that goes well beyond mold — particulate counts, VOCs, CO₂, humidity, temperature gradients.
We'd start with · Indoor air quality assessment
We bought a 1960s house and want to remodel.
Two things you want to know before swinging a hammer in a pre-1980 house: is there asbestos in the materials you're about to disturb, and is there a buried oil tank on the property. Oregon DEQ actually requires asbestos testing before most renovations. We'll do both in one visit.
We'd start with · Asbestos survey + oil tank scan
There's standing water in my crawl space every winter.
On this coast, that's most of us at some point. The problem isn't the water on a given day — it's the year-round humidity it creates, which feeds mold, rots framing, and ends up in your indoor air. We dry it out, vapor-barrier it, and fix the drainage so it doesn't come back.
We'd start with · Crawl space assessment
I just want to know my house is okay.
A lot of our calls are this one, and we love them. A baseline check — radon, a walk-through of the building envelope, a look at the attic and crawl space — costs less than dinner out and gives you peace of mind. If everything's fine, we'll tell you everything's fine.
We'd start with · Baseline check
Around the house
A house has about six places where coastal environmental problems hide. Here's the map, with what we usually find and what to do about it.
Over 250,000 known species, all of them allergens at high enough concentration. A healthy person handles low levels fine — it's about dose, exposure time, and individual sensitivity. Babies, elderly, asthma, allergies = more careful.
Colorless, odorless radioactive gas from natural radium decay. The second-leading cause of lung cancer after smoking. EPA action level is 4.0 pCi/L; "mitigate" advice kicks in around 2.0. Common in Pacific Northwest soils.
A fiber used heavily in building materials before 1980 and not fully phased out until later. Undisturbed, it's usually safe. Disturbed — sanded, cut, demolished — it releases microscopic fibers that lodge in lungs and cause cancer decades later.
If you've read this far, you're probably worried about something specific — and we'd rather have that conversation with you on the phone than make you fill out a form.
We started Elements Environmental from a single van in Warrenton, ten years ago. The thing that's stayed the same since: we never sell a test or a system someone doesn't need. The thing that's changed: we've now seen most of the houses on this coast at least once.
If you call and we don't think you have a problem, we'll tell you. If you do, we'll be straight about what it'll cost to fix. That's the whole pitch.
Get in touch
No form, no funnel — just a phone number that goes to a person who has been doing this for ten years. Or an email if that's easier.