Five Quick Tips for Stopping and Preventing Mold
1) Identify problem areas and stop active leaks and condensation. Too often the owner throws money at indoor air quality problems or remediates mold before identifying and curing the source of the odor or moisture. Get to the source of moisture-and stop it! Then remediate (if necessary).
2) Conduct Preventative Maintenance. We recommend that you seal around all doors, windows, roof and wall penetrations.
3) Control the air within the building. Moisture can come from the air. Odors can come from inside or outside.
4) Use no impermeable paints or vinyl wall coverings. We suggest you not listen to anyone (including interior designers) who wants to do what you’ve always done when it comes to using vinyl wall coverings.
5) Implement a Proactive Moisture and Indoor Air Quality Management Program.
Simple, consistent, and regular building systems operation and communication can manage moisture and indoor air quality in a building. Not surprisingly, this “regular and consistent” step is the most likely to fall through the proverbial cracks.
Almost on a daily basis, people see symptoms in their buildings, and most are pretty obvious. But very few ever learn to actually recognize and cure the underlying diseases that cause them.
Is mold a disease?
Do you want this lurking behind your walls?
No, I’m not a doctor, and I’m not talking about curing a sickness; I’m talking about fixing mold-related problems. If building professionals (architects, engineers, and contractors) would teach themselves to look deeper, to the root of the problem (the disease) rather than simply trying to patch up the surface symptoms they see, they would often be able to fix not only the problem that they’re seeing but often a whole host of others that might crop up–many seemingly unrelated (like floor or ceiling tile problems or odors).
Do different problems crop up?
Mold isn’t just unattractive. It can harm your building and its occupants.
If you are having trouble following this line of thinking, let me use this analogy: One night, you’re ready for bed and you happen to notice a crack in the ceiling. You patch the crack and slap some paint on it. But in no time at all, the crack is back, longer and more obvious than it was before. So you re-patch it. Again, it returns, but this time, it not only runs across the ceiling but is also beginning to creep down the wall. Now you have to repair the wall and the ceiling.
All seems fine until it rains. You see wet spots on your ceiling—the roof is leaking. The leak turns out to be directly related to the cracks in the ceiling. After a thorough examination, you discover that all of these problems are symptoms as a result of a faulty foundation. Fix the foundation (the disease), and you cure the cracks and leaks (the symptoms). Rather than continually patching and re-patching, it simply makes more sense to deal with the problem at its source. Right?
Why don’t building professionals do a complete examination?
So why don’t building professionals think about fixing the problems they see in buildings in the same manner? After all, your building is a living system. Most of the problems that arise are interconnected, whether it’s mold, indoor air quality, or comfort.
If your building is large or small, these guidelines can help you stop and prevent mold for good.
Problems are usually a direct result of faulty building fundamentals—like the crack/leak analogy, they are cracks in the building’s fundamental building systems. Go back to basics and work on reinforcing the fundamentals and you’ll likely cure a whole host of problems—it’s that simple.
And, if you have ever participated in an organized sport, you have no doubt heard your coaches preach “fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals” until they’re blue in the face. Building science is no different. Rather than simply patching and re-patching and re-patching – treating only the symptoms – go back and cure the disease, the underlying problem. You will be miles ahead.
Is this insanity?
We often complete projects where the client has mold problems having remediated mold several times (by themselves, by a contractor, and with a consultant), only to have mold return or pop up in another location. Is repeating remediation (or replacing consistently wet ceiling tile) the same as insanity?
Buildings old and new require constant care.
Your building is a living system. It has a skin and body functions. You must feed it and care for it properly—and when it is sick, you need someone who knows what the body parts are, how the parts fit together, how the parts are cared for, and how to diagnose problems.
If you misdiagnose the problem and remediate, you might not solve the problem (you might not even cure that symptom). So…if you call a contractor to remediate mold, they will do it. And the mold might return. If you call an engineer to design mold remediation without determining what caused the mold, they will do it. And the mold might return.
Don’t fall into the trap of “making progress!”
Don’t just “cure” symptoms. Do a complete examination and cure the cause.
In the case of mold, remediation will be part of the solution—but not the whole solution. Find and cure the source of moisture—and mold won’t return.
Remember: You don’t need a building professional to tell you that you have mold.
You don’t need a building professional to tell you that you must remediate the mold. You need a true building professional to tell you how to keep the mold from coming back.
Building care doesn’t stop there.
A properly designed and constructed building needs tender loving care. Nothing lasts forever—and accidents happen.
You too can prevent mold.
Be sure you have a real operation and maintenance program for all your building systems. Include programs for responding to storms and leaks. Remember, you too can prevent mold! (My apologies to the Smokey the Bear).
Leave comments and questions below, and I’ll get right back to you.
Stay preventative, my friends.
Chris White, P.E., LEED AP has been helping clients solve problems for 20 years. You can follow him on Twitter @ChrisWhitePE.
