If you’re looking to improve your air quality in your home, you must understand just how volatile and necessary mold testing is. Mold (and the mildew that comes with it) can be very harmful to everyone in the household, but not only that, it can actually damage the structure of the home. We’ll go through some information in this post and give you some reasons why mold testing is important to determine indoor air quality for homes.
What is mold?
Contrary to what many people think, mold is actually a fungus. It starts to grow by spores just like other fungi do (mushrooms, etc.). Unfortunately though, some people are extremely sensitive to mold, and the mold spores themselves can literally float around through the air, in vent systems, and more. Some people can get sick from even touching mold through cross contamination and causing the spores to disperse through the air.
How to Test for Mold
There are numerous methods you can choose. One of the most common is hiring someone to come into your home and the professional will do extensive tests, as well as collect samples throughout your home so they can give you the highest and best quality results. A great company we recommend can be found at irislaboratories.com.
Another method is going to the home hardware or retail discount store (such as Wal-Mart) and get the mold test kits yourself. It is less expensive, and you collect samples of mold yourself and have it sent to a lab which gives you results of what they are.
Since mold grows over time, you need to do more than one mold test usually. You want to test the air, the surfaces of products, and taking material or object pieces which you may think is contaminated with mold. You can also do culture tests for accurate results as well.
Ways to Prevent Mold
When it comes to removing mold from your home, it is completely situational based on where the mold is found. There are some things you can do to ward it off, and remove it, as well as prevent it though. For starters, wear rubber PPE (personal protective equipment) when you’re cleaning up an area that has mold, and make sure that you have the areas well ventilated. You can simply open up the windows and let fresh air in.
While cleaning the mold, use something such as bleach or ammonia (NEVER together though, as this creates mustard gas and is deathly toxic for you). Dirt carries a majority of the mold spores, so you want to remove as much dirt as possible. Also, when cleaning affected rooms, work your way from the top down. So if you have mold on your walls, bathtub tiles, or bathtub, make sure you clean from the top, and then sweep and mop the floor to help remove any mold spores. To get rid of mold spores in the air, another good method is to get or use a wet dry shop-vac (or similar). Fill it about ¼ of the way full of water, and let it run by itself for 30 minutes to an hour in the room after you’re done cleaning everything to help get rid of floating particles and dust in the air that the spores can attach themselves to.
