Every Fact About Mold Removal

In this blog post, I will share with you how to prevent mold growth on wood surfaces and ways to safely remove mold mildew from wood materials.

Molds nourish on the minerals and oil in the paint of the wood surface. This causes discoloration to the wood surface. Sometimes, they can eat into the paint film and penetrate to the underlying wood and destroy the structure.

Most of the times, using some mold or mildew resistant paints for outdoor wood surfaces can prevent this from happening. These paints are formulated with special chemicals to fight mold attack. You can get one of this paint from your local paint and hardware stores.

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In my previous post, where I discussed about mold removal products, I mentioned about using bleach to kill mold. Today I will talk about the effectiveness of bleach as a mold removal product, its usage and limitations in killing mold. To learn about other mold removal products, you may refer to my previous posts.

Bleach is the product we have known for years to be good at killing bacteria and viruses. Some believe bleach can kill mold as well. Yes, bleach is a mold killer, but that’s limited to molds grow on non-porous materials such as counter-tops, tiles, bathroom, shower glass, tubs, etc. When dealing with mold infection on non-porous surfaces, you can use a mixture of less than a cup of bleach to one gallon of water to effectively disinfect and kill molds.

However, the use of bleach to kill molds on porous materials is not recommended for the fact that bleach contains 99% of water. When bleach is used to clean and disinfect porous materials like wood and drywall, the Iodin structure of bleach prevents Chlorine from soaking into the materials to kill the roots of molds. While the water element of bleach penetrates through the surfaces and feed the roots. Therefore remediating porous materials with bleach is said to accelerate mold growth rather than stopping and killing it.

Bleach is corrosive. It releases harmful fumes that can cause serious health problems. When bleach is used as mold removal product, make sure you follow proper safety measures to protect yourself from inhaling the toxic fumes.

In conclusion, bleach can be used as mold removal product for non-porous surfaces like glass, tiles, tubs, counter-top and etc. Do not ever use bleach to kill mold on porous materials like wood and drywall. It expedites mold infestation due to the water content of bleach. Remember to put on protective gears whenever dealing with any mold removal product such as bleach. Do not mix bleach with ammonia, as this will create toxic fumes. Bleach is not registered with EPA as a mold removal product. Thus the effectiveness of killing mold with bleach is not proven.

Basically four items are needed for mold growth – water, food, ideal temperature and air.

Different mold might need different quantities of these four eg. Some mold require more water to survive and grow than others.

Planet Earth readily supplies air to support living organisms, so that condition for mold to grow is always present. However, if mold spores settle on dry surface, it cannot grow due to the absence of water.

Most of the places inside our homes are dry, thus not providing ideal situations for mold to grow. Nevertheless, other parts of our homes may turn out to be ideal places for mold to flourish. These places are usually damp and wet, located in basements and toilets, probably resulting from piping leaks or floods.

If mold finds air and moisture, but no food, it can’t grow either. Mold feeds on dead organic matter. However, mold is good at getting food in our homes by having microscopic threads to absorb nutrients.

Hence, we can find mold on :

• Fabric
• Paper
• Cardboard
• Ceramic tiles (containing particles of food and dust on its surface)
• Paint
• Drywall
• Fiberglass insulation (dust-covered)
• Wood framing
• Floors

So, we don’t only hate mold for being unsightly; mold can cause structural damage to our homes. We may have to fork out tons of money to repair our homes overgrown with molds. Not only that, we also may have to pay dearly for the damage it does to our health.