When most homeowners think about mold they start to panic. They envision that tiny black spot or green spot growing in the corner that just spread until it has taken over the entire house.
Some homeowners battle with mold regularly. They clean it, they paint over it, but they just can't seem to get rid of it because they don't understand how mold grows and what they can do to prevent mold growth in their home.
What is Mold?
Mold is actually a form of fungus and it is one important to our technological cycles. Fungus serves a unique role as a decomposer. That means it helps rotting material to decompose.
This is a natural cycle without which our world would not be the world it is today and would instead be a world full of mountains of dead and rotting material. So, getting rid of mold entirely would be detrimental because it serves a very unique purpose outside in the wilderness.
But inside your home, you want to get rid of it because it does not serve the same purpose. Unless you have a pile of garbage you are trying to decompose inside your home, get rid of mold before it becomes a problem.
Is Having Mold in Your Home Bad?
Most people don't realize that mold spores exist everywhere. The air you breathe inside and outside probably contains microscopic amounts of mold spores. It's when these spores become significantly larger in quantity that mold poses health risks.
When mold spores are ingested in certain forms they are not harmful. You ingest mold spores when you drink wine or beer, when you eat cheese, or when you take antibiotics. There are other mold spores which are harmful especially people who eat moldy cereal.
Ingestion of Mold Can be Very Harmful
If you ingest harmful mold through the food that you eat, it can cause nausea, abdominal pain, and a burning sensation in your mouth. Humans aren't the only ones subject to this. Cows who eat moldy hay can also experience the same symptoms.
The more common reaction people have is an allergic reaction. There are very few mold spores that are toxic to people but there are plenty of mold spores that cause allergic reactions.
For some people just a small amount of mold spores can trigger an allergic reaction or an asthma attack. For other people there may be no symptoms unless they are exposed to extremely high levels of mold spores.
Who is at the Greatest Risk of Harm from Mold?
People who have the greatest risk to mold exposure are those who have allergies or asthma, inflammatory lung disease, are recovering from surgery, have weakened immune systems, our babies, pregnant, or elderly.
What Kind of Health Problems Can Mold Cause?
The type of health problems you might face as a result of exposure to mold spores will depend on the type of mold, the quantity of mold that exist in the area, and how long you are exposed to it. Other factors include your age, your health, and your sensitivity.
What Types of Mold Are There?
Some mold spores produce allergic reactions and these are typically organic chemicals that cause a headache, red eyes, rashes, aches, runny noses, or sinus problems.
Pathogenic mold is much more serious and these are called toxic mold. These produce spores that have dangerous chemicals called mycotoxins. This is a form of mold and mildew that is poisonous.
You can inhale airborne spores of any kind very easily and if you do it can cause a sore throat, a headache, weakness, the inability to concentrate, or a rash. In more extreme cases, exposure to toxic, pathogenic mold can cause chest pain, shortness of breath, and immune orders, cancer, and brain damage.
How Does Mold Grow?
Mold feeds on organic materials like drywall or wood. So these materials will often weaken structurally until they start to decay. Mold needs warm, dark, moist environments to grow. For this reason, you have to make sure that your home is properly vented and that moisture is not heavily present in the air.
Again, mold spores exist everywhere and you probably bring them in when you were inside and outside but excess moisture in the air can cause more condensation and this can cause more mold growth.
Consider a basement. If you have a concrete basement, your floors are probably much colder than the rest of the house. As the basement is located at the bottom of the home, if you don't use it regularly it probably isn't as warm as the rest of the home either because you heat the rooms in which you live but not the ones you don't.
Most basements have ventilation windows that open to the ground level outside. If it has been a particularly rainy day, assuming there were no floods, the water outside in the air will be brought into your basement when the air flows inside.
That will combine with the warm air wafting down from above and the cold air coming up from the floor. When they meet in the middle it creates humid temperatures and this results in condensation.
In concrete basement that condensation might gather in the corners after which, without any lighting and with the are staying stagnant as it is, the mold spores contained in the air will start to spread and multiply.
Basements are just one of many unexpected places in your home where mold can grow.
Before too long you will see mold growth. Now, you could simply wipe that away with anti mildew cleansing agents or hire professionals to conduct mold remediation services.
How Can You Tell if You Have Mold in Your Home?
There are quite a few warning signs of mold growth in your home. Be sure to keep an eye out for them, especially in Spring time, which is one of the most prevalent times for mold growth.
Musty Odor
If there is a musty odor inside it can attract insects that carry with them mold spores from one location to the next.
Poorly Ventilated Areas
If you have an inadequately vented space full of books, or a room where there is a crawl space, a place where you store firewood without proper ventilation, or water condensation around your pipes, these are all examples of environment perfect for mold growth.
Indoor Humidity
If you have an indoor humidity level above 50%, you probably have a problem with your bathroom, kitchen, or laundry room vents and this can create serious mold growth.
Water Damage
If you see stains from water damage on your floors, on your wallpaper, in the wood work or in your ceiling, or anywhere else, or you see evidence of a house fire that was extinguished with water, it is important that you get these areas dried and replaced if necessary. If the moisture is allowed to stay present because of the regular leak, it can create the perfect environment for mold spores grow.
Stale Air
If the air in your home just smells stale, it probably is and that means that there's a low air exchange with the outside of the house. Simply put you need to air out your house. Open the doors in the windows if not for 10 minutes at a time so that you can get better airflow inside.
Common Places Mold Can Be Found in Homes
Always look around the air conditioning vents and the heating vents for evidence of mold growth.
Check the rugs on your floors or the carpeted areas of your home alongside the grout in your showers to make sure that there is no evidence of mildew.
How Mold Removal Professionals Can Help You With Your Mold Problems
We Can Find Mold in Hard to See Places
We have the equipment test your home for evidence of mold growth behind your walls or under your floor. These are situations where mold growth is not visible to the naked eye but it can cause serious damage if left untreated.
We Can Find Mold Before it Becomes a Problem
If you take a rug which is dry and you place it on the floor in the room where you think there might be a mold problem, or you place it up against the wall, you can do a test at home before calling professional. Leave the rug and placed for 24 to 48 hours. When you take it down if the bottom of it is moist that means there is moisture trapped on the other side of your wall or under your floor and that is getting through into your home.
We Can Run tests to Ensure Your Home is Safe from Mold
If this is the case you will need to call professionals who can come out and verify your test results, using professional tools to check where mold exists in your home and what your moisture levels are. Then they can remove any mold carefully from the surfaces in your home. If there is damage to the structural Integrity of the wood in your floorboards or a component in your wall those might have to be removed entirely and replaced.
We Keep Air Quality Safe in Your Home
Professionals can also go through crawl spaces, check the HVAC system and look in common hot spots for mold growth. They will be able to tell you if the mold you have is toxic or not so that you can take appropriate measures.
If you notice mold in your home, you can take measures to clean it yourself and then call a professional to help you find the cause of the issue. If you see mold growth around the vent openings for your heating or your HVAC system, you can turn off the system entirely and wipe everything down with a mask and an anti mold cleaning agent. All of these things you can do regularly in your home so that when you do call in professionals the job they have to do is not nearly as severe.
On top of this, we offer what is called Dustless Demolition. We leave the workspace the same as we came into it at Silver Environmental. No mess, no hassle, purely professional. That is just one of the many reasons we have been the best mold removal service in the Greater Boston Area for over 25 years.
We Make Sure the Mold is Gone for Good
It is important to remember that Professional Services like this will tackle the issue at hand, remove the damaged area and replace it if necessary, rotting pieces of wood or tile will be removed, but in the end you might still have that same basement set up, you might still leave it unvented with the windows open at ground level.
This just means you are susceptible to the same problem occurring year after year. It is important to figure out the underlying cause of your mold problem if you have one and rectify the cause.
Most commonly people are able to add new fans to their home, clean the exhaust vents, put anti mildew components in the HVAC system, and dry off the surfaces of their bathroom after each shower. These simple measures can help remove your chances of mold growth.