Dangerous to your health and destructive to your belongings, mold spores are always in the air and summer can provide them with the right conditions to grow, especially if you do not have an air conditioner in your building. When it comes to this destructive fungal force, prevention is as important as its treatment, if not more.
Mold Prevention
If you do not have an air conditioner in your home, regularly clean areas that experience humidity or condensation with a cleanser that contains bleach. Such areas include toilets and the floor around them, under sinks, around exposed pipes and windowsills.
Use a fan to circulate the air in the room so hot air does not stay trapped by your ceiling.
If an area of your building gets wet, use fans and dehumidifiers to dry it out immediately. If you experience severe water damage, call a restoration specialist.
Keep everything dry. Because mold thrives in moist conditions, eliminating them can keep mold at bay.
Damaged roofs and leaky pipes can also lead to mold damage, so if it becomes a recurring problem, have your home inspected by a professional.
An accidental grease fire in the former courthouse and First National Bank in Cadiz, OH on May 6, 2011 left a historical building in ruins, four tenants homeless and a store out of business. Today, owners Tom and Vicki Cole report that they want to restore the building in spite of the fire damage.
Official suspect the eight-alarm fire started when a tenant in the building left potatoes frying on her stovetop and walked away to chat with a neighbor. Firefighters used over 100,000 gallons of water to extinguish the blaze, which caused extensive water damageto the second and third stories of the building. Additionally, a gap in the roof left by the fire allowed rain to pour in and add to the excessive moisture already in the historic building, causing mold damage.
Wanting to preserve the town’s historical connection to the old courthouse, the Coles plan to shrink-wrap the building to protect it from further water damage. Tom Cole states the shrink-wrap material is made out of a polyurethane material that professionals will stretch over the entire roof after crews place boards over the windows. After wrapping the roof, the Coles will work on clearing the burned debris and restoring the burned building even though they are not sure how they will use it, as they did not have a business continuity plan in place.
Growing in walls, old books, wet documents and old carpets, mold is a problem that invades homes, schools and businesses when there is any hint of humidity. This summer the Florida Mold Bill became a law to establish standards for professionals who do mold assessments and perform remediation services in the state.
When you find a mold infestation, according to the state of Florida, there are three things you should do:
1. Make sure the remediation specialist holds an American Council Accredited Certification. This agency provides remediation contractor licenses for several states.
2. Make sure the remediation professional has liability insurance coverage that has a mold specific pollution-liability rider.
3. Keep in mind that the state you are in may not allow the contractor who performs the mold assessment be the same contractor who remediates the mold. This helps make sure there is a high level of accountability among contractors to make sure mold is remediated according to the state protocols in place, damage to property is prevented, there are less chances for economic injuries and health risks are reduced.
When it comes to mold damage in a home or building, individuals should take measures to ensure safety and welfare, particularly when it comes to those with weakened immune systems, young children and the elderly.
Whether it comes from nature or is manmade, water damage can lead to unimaginable destruction to a building. Water damage can come in the high-visible form of a flood, or lurk behind the walls of a building. When left untreated, standing water is the perfect breeding ground for mold growth.
Preventing
As soon as your building experiences water damage, dry it as soon as possible. If you do not employ the services of a professional, open all the windows in the building (if it is not raining) or use a dehumidifier to help dry-out the room. If there is actual water damage that you cannot simply just dry, remove the water-damaged items and replace them with new materials.
Finding
Whenever there is mold growth in a building, the first thing you should do is find the source of the water leak. In a building, water can leak from burst pipes, roof damage, poor window seals, areas where there is standing water or a natural disaster. Finding the source of water that caused the mold growth can help you quickly remediate the problem.
Fixing
The best way to fix mold damage is to hire a disaster restoration company. In a home, mold can compromise the integrity of a family’s health. In a building such as a school or office, mold can impair the day-to-day operations of the establishment, especially if the building must be closed during the remediation process.
Cleaning mold can be a costly and time-consuming process. You can prevent the return of mold growth in a building by contacting a mold remediation specialist.
When Hurricane Katrina caused extensive flooding in the state of Louisiana in 2005, the waters were an equal-opportunity offender. As a result, the St. Bernard Parish Courthouse also received extensive flood water damageas 3 feet of water just sat in the building.
In an attempt to keep business operating, courthouse staff found other parts of the building to work in as they picked through important wet documents in an attempt to salvage them. Business continuity led the courthouse staff to another worksite after extensive mold damage was discovered in the 70-year-old building’s walls and air ducts, and the chronically leaky roof did not make matters any better.
Dangerous to your health and destructive to your belongings, mold spores are always in the air and summer can provide them with the right conditions to grow, especially if you do not have an air conditioner in your building. When it comes to this destructive fungal force, prevention is as important as its treatment, if not more.
