Sunny Hsiung (Clean Air Restoration)

Sunny Hsiung is the vice president of Clean Air Restoration, a mold remediation services company in the Twin Cities. 

As a child, Hsiung lived in a variety of Twin Cities locales. 

“All over the place,” he says, listing off several cities while I sip on Caribou Coffee’s mid hot chocolate. 

“But always with the same family,” he quickly notes. 

As a teenager, Hsiung’s head wasn’t buried in textbooks, his mind often wandering toward far more interesting topics.  

“High school was all about the minimum commitment to school, and maximizing the time that I could spend doing fun things, like skateboarding or discovering cars,” he says. 

After graduating from high school, Hsiung went to work for a concrete company.

“That was my first taste of the small business world,” he says.

The rigors of concrete didn’t ultimately satiate Hsiung’s passion for knowledge and helping others, so after a year he transitioned into home restoration, linking up with Clean Air Restoration, which at the time was doing residential and commercial air duct and dryer vent cleaning. 

Then, in early 2020, Clean Air Restoration became an emergency restoration company, a natural progression for the business since they were already intimately familiar with the presence of mold inside and outside of ductwork. 

Today, after eight years with Clean Air Restoration, Hsiung, an excitable and jovial individual, has elevated to the role of vice president of Clean Air Restoration.

“A lot of stress and excitement comes from working in this industry,” he says, a beaming grin streaking across his face, and that’s not just because winter is almost over here in Minnesota. 

Hsiung is simply that devoted to mold remediation. 

“I work 40 hours per week, if you round down,” he quips. 

For context, Clean Air Restoration removes “suspect microbial growth,” a sentiment Hsiung echoes every week when he attends Maple Grove BNI’s networking event. 

In layman’s terms, Hsiung and Clean Air Restoration eliminate mold that has surfaced on ceilings and attics, where temperatures foster the perfect environment for suspicious and undesirable microbes.  

“Scientifically speaking, mold is everywhere, but usually its presence is nominal. In fact, it’s when water and organic material meet that mold can grow. Also, water alone could very well be completely harmless, provided it isn’t in an environment where it could damage organic materials like metal gutters, porcelain sinks or plastic tubs,” Hsiung explains, not in a manner that suggests he is attempting to emulate Bill Nye, but he certainly is trying to make homeowners aware of the fact that mold is sneaky and calculated, albeit simultaneously preventable. 

For example, when you take a steaming hot shower, you should turn on the bathroom fan.

Doing this mitigates the amount of moisture that collects on your windows, and it also keeps malicious mold from metastasizing. 

“Managing moisture is a great way to stop growth,” Hsiung emphasizes.  

“It would be like if you take a piece of fruit and leave it on your counter, eventually, fruit flies will come, and if left unaddressed for long enough, over time you won’t be able to just throw the piece of fruit away. Rather, you will likely have to do much more to get rid of all those annoying insects.”

For those whose microbial growth goes unchecked for too long, hiring Clean Air Restoration can result in a simple fix, or Hsiung and his team could find mold that requires a significant capital investment. 

“Sometimes we’re just dealing with a small cleanup, and other times there is a massive problem that has to be dealt with,” says Hsiung, who finds that most projects range anywhere from $1,000-$8,000 in cost. 

“Usually we can tell how much work is required by examining surfaces, but sometimes it will warrant further examination before a final determination can be made.”

At every level, Hsiung and Clean Air Restoration are looking to educate their clients on what exactly is occurring in their home, and what can be done to eradicate the issue. 

In other words, transparency, communication, and documentation are three crucial staples of Clean Air Restoration’s approach to mold remediation.

“That, and quality is paramount to us,” Hsiung adds.  

“We really like never having to go back out to fix our work, which is why we’re so intent on doing it correctly the first time.”

In that sense, Clean Air Restoration is not revolutionizing the mold remediation business, but they are following an effective formula that promises to both solve problems and satisfy customers.

Therefore, when asked what Clean Air Restoration hopes to accomplish in the coming years, Hsiung’s answer is straightforward, practical, and devoid of any overly aspirational language. 

“We want to be widely known as a specialist when it comes to dealing with air contamination in structures,” Hsiung says.  

“That contamination is unfortunately very prevalent in the Twin Cities, which is why we want to continue to be a trusted and valuable resource for our clients when they need us.” QS

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