Excessive mold growth in a home is never a welcome finding, and to remediate it properly requires time, training and great attention to detail. Unfortunately, fly-by-night businesses have grown up dedicated to “shortcutting” proper remediation protocols.
Some are so-called “professionals” who had an online class that taught them to “spray and pray” (spray bleach on it and pray it doesn’t come back.)
Others are chemical companies that sell chlorine bleach, under a different name to homeowners and basically tell them the same thing – “Why pay a professional?
To understand proper mold remediation, you must first look at it through a microscope. It resembles a tiny dandelion field…the spores are the dandelion seeds, clustered at the ends of the stalks.
The spores of many molds including Aspergillus
Stachybotrys and Cladosporium, are respiratory irritants. Additionally, even if the bleach or other disinfectant does “kill” (the correct term is “deactivate”) the mold spores, they are still a respiratory irritant, especially to anyone that is particularly sensitive to them. Young children, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems are at the highest risk.
For this reason, a true mold remediator takes care to remove as many spores and as much of the hyphal growth as possible through HEPA vacuuming and uses special HEPA-filtered air scrubbers to maintain negative pressure in the work chamber, whether it be a room of the house, and attic or a crawlspace.
This ensures that spores within the chamber don’t cross-contaminate other parts of the house, since air is constantly flowing into the workspace, rather than out of it.
Porous materials
If you have a very small mold issue, you may be able to successfully remediate it yourself, and most professionals will gladly share best practices with you if this is the case.
But if it is a larger area, it’s usually best to get an IICRC Certified Applied Microbial Remediation Technician to look at it and prepare a remediation plan based on the unique situation at hand.
If you have mold damage in Tulsa, Jenks, Owasso, or elsewhere here in northeastern Oklahoma, and need an inspection, give us a call at 918-844-4900!
