3 Tips On Mold Control That Will Improve Your Life

Scared about mold? Wish it would just go away? Want to know how to prevent it? We’ve rounded up 3 tips that will help you beat mold and improve your life.

Tip #1: Prevention is Better than Remediation

The best way to deal with mold is to not have to deal with it in the first place. Mold likes to grow in damp and dark areas.

Installing a central air conditioning system to cool the house and remove moisture from the air is a good first step. Houses that are in hot, humid environments are a perfect environment for mold growth.

Identify areas of the house that are naturally damp. Bathrooms, basements, saunas (lucky you), and indoor hot tubs are all prime places for mold growth. You should then work to remove the moisture by removing any sources of water. Watch for sweaty or leaky pipes, cracked foundations, etc.

Here are some tips for controlling moisture in these areas:

Install dehumidifiers in areas of the house that suffer from moisture.
Increase air circulation by installing a vent fan or more air vents.
Insulate water pipes.

Take immediate action when you suffer a water damage. If a pipe bursts or rainwater seeps in you need to take immediate action to keep mold from forming. Calling a professional cleaning company to remove the water and properly dry down the affected areas is generally needed to ensure that water doesn’t linger in the walls or floor and cause mold to grow. If you don’t take care of water damage properly you are creating a perfect environment for mold to grow.

Tip #2: Don’t Sit on Mold

One of the worst things you can do when you see mold is to do nothing. While mold spores are naturally all around us, if mold is visible then you have a problem. The longer you wait to take care of the mold, the greater the damage to the building, the greater the potential health effects, and the harder it will be to safely remediate. By the time you actually see mold it has already been around for a while, don’t wait to get it remediated.

Tip #3: Don’t Count on Bleach to Take Care of a Mold Problem

We have covered whether or not bleach kills mold in another article titled: 8 Bad “Facts” About Mold Everyone Thinks Are True. But the short story is that bleach does not reliably kill mold, has its own health side effects, and can cause damage if improperly used. Furthermore, even if you kill the mold allergens still remain and can negatively impact your health.

To truly take care of a mold problem you must remediate the mold. This means properly containing the affected areas, use specialized equipment, chemicals, and processes to clean the affected areas without spreading the mold spores, and proper removal and disposal of affected areas.

These are not tasks that the typical homeowner or business professional are equipped to handle, which is why a professional mold remediation company is often required to properly clean up mold.

Wrapping it up + A Fourth Bonus Tip

Make sense? Using these three simple tips you can put yourself in a good position to avoid a mold problem. A 4th bonus tip would be to get informed about mold so that you can discern the hype from the reality. Here is a list of resources to get you started.