8 ms·

Seems like a pretty reasonable guide from my quick read. The most important thing for people to know is the following snippet: > It is impossible to eliminate

by davemp 3y ago

Seems like a pretty reasonable guide from my quick read. The most important thing for people to know is the following snippet: > It is impossible to eliminate all mold and mold spores in the indoor environment. However, mold growth can be controlled indoors by controlling moisture indoors. Dealing with mold is pretty easy, just get everything dry. No need to go crazy tearing the building apart to hunt for dormant/dead mold (obviously there is a correlation of moldy building with neglected buildings so you might have to demo/repair anyways). If air quality is a concern that can be addressed monitoring/filtering. Afaik mold is only a big topic because of lawyers seeing a nice liability and the media a spooky story.

baobabKoodaa 3y ago
> Dealing with mold is pretty easy, just get everything dry. No, that's not enough. Dormant/dead mold can still cause air quality problems. In most cases damaged material needs to be replaced. In some cases it's sufficient to isolate the damaged material to reduce its impact on air quality. I'm from Finland and it seems that we treat mold much more seriously compared to other countries. I don't know if Finnish people have a genetic or environmental effect that makes people much more susceptible to get symptoms in moldy buildings, but it's super weird reading about how other countries treat mold...
- giantg2 3y ago
  In fairness, they did say monitoring air quality was part of the solution. If you get it dry and clean any visible mold, then the air tests come back fine, it shouldn't be an issue. The air tests are the only way to really know.
  - dumbfounder 3y ago
    Are you talking about those petri dishes you put out? I have heard from a trusted mold expert that they just always show up positive. I don't know that I trust that, but the problem is that every house actually has mold, and in many places, and who knows what's actually contributing to the problems. Are massive air purifiers enough to mitigate the issues? Can you just tackle the surface molds? Maybe these questions are answered in the mold course, I need to take it asap.
    - baobabKoodaa 3y ago
      > Are massive air purifiers enough to mitigate the issues? As far as I know, air purifiers do not filter mold related particles in the air to any useful amount.
      - ponector 3y ago
        Depends on the model. HEPA filters can filter mold particles.
    - giantg2 3y ago
      The petri dishes are for ID and yeah theyll be positive. Real air quality spore measures require a filter disk and vacuum. Then you need to compare counts inside vs outside. There will always be some level, which is why it's important to compare with ambient outdoor levels. Some say you even need multiple samples at varying weather conditions. Then types are important too.
  - baobabKoodaa 3y ago
    It's not possible to reliably test if the air has harmful amounts/species of mold or not. The air quality tests contaminate very easily and even when they don't contaminate, there is a lot of uncertainty with the results, and given any particular results, different people will opine different interpretations of them...
    - giantg2 3y ago
      The filter/vacuum testing is pretty good. You do need a baseline to compare it to, which is often the exterior spore count. Yes, the recommended actions can be all over the place.
- ponector 3y ago
  Yes, for European it is weird to read. I think this is a big issue in US because the way they build houses, mainly with wood and gypsum. In case of water damage it is really hard to dry those materials.
- digging 3y ago
  Typically in the US, nobody at any point in the process gives a shit if a home is or will become moldy, except sometimes the person living in the home. It's especially bad for renters who in many states have almost no legal protections (and if they do have them, accessing them is incredibly difficult).
notslow 3y ago
> Afaik mold is only a big topic because of lawyers seeing a nice liability and the media a spooky story. Unfortunately, mold is also a growing health concern for a sizable portion of the population. My family got severely ill from a moldy house, and it is taking us years to fully recover. The longer we have been aware the more and more folks we find are dealing with something similar. The EPA Guide is a great start, but in our experience lacks some situational nuance that might increase its helpfulness. Each person reacts differently mold, some folks are just more sensitive than others. There are no federal standards for mold, either for allowable amounts in your home or guidelines for construction. So depending on your health response you may in fact need to go crazy tearing apart your house to hunt for mold. After talking with ~30 different mold remediators, inspectors, remodeling contractors, etc. We got ~30 different responses for possible causes for mold in our our home. Ultimately, the cost to fix the true sources of mold in our home (due the sources being related to construction practices around the foundation) was equivalent to new construction. We ended up tearing down the moldy house. We're hoping to move into our new house late next spring!
- giantg2 3y ago
  Some people charge insane prices. I can't believe a foundation issue would cost as much as new construction. It's not that hard to put in a French drain, even if the house needs to be cribbed up due to structural issues.
  - notslow 3y ago
    I know, seems crazy from the outside looking in, but nothing was particularly outrageously priced (and we did get several estimates from all sorts of people). To be fair, it wasn't just the foundation. Because of the mold in the basement the rest of the house also became contaminated and needed to be remediated (and my family is now super sensitive). I will also note that this during COVID so prices were somewhat higher than they are now. Believe me we did not set out to tear down our house, but that ended up being the best way to address the issues with the old house.
    - 3y ago
gregwebs 3y ago
It is becoming a big topic because more people are becoming sensitive to mold exposure and more time is being spent indoors. Think of how the prevalence of allergies has increased dramatically in our society. Something similar may be happening with mold except at orders of magnitude lower prevalence. Actually there are theories that similar pathways are involved with allergies and mold- that mold triggers immune reactions just like allergies. When I learned about mold sensitivity I got concerned and started doing mold tests and looking out for mold exposure but eventually realized that nobody in my family is mold sensitive. The "not a big deal" attitude is right for most people, but we should be sensitive to those that are highly mold sensitive.
- kijin 3y ago
  Exposure to mold is also likely to be correlated with socioeconomic status, especially in more humid parts of the country. Think what kind of people are most likely to live in rundown houses (or even basements!) barely above the water table, without a functioning HVAC unit. Mold is the kind of problem that is at most a nuisance for people who have the means to do something about it, but seemingly unsolvable for people who actually need a solution.
  - notslow 3y ago
    This! One of the best solutions to prevent mold is to improve energy efficiency. There are an increasing number of grant programs and Housing improvement initiatives available, but still those improvements are out of reach for a lot of people. We live in the Southeast US which is incredibly humid and so many houses have issues.
- bonton89 3y ago
  Houses are a lot tighter than they were in the past which makes it harder for them to "dry out" unless you have some kind of air circulation system. My house certainly doesn't and it wouldn't be easy to retrofit.
  - giantg2 3y ago
nix0n 3y ago
> just get everything dry In many places this is not easy.
mattfields 3y ago
This is, with no intended disespect, both absolutely false and dangerously blithely ignorant. Unfortunately most of the population (including medical doctors) also has a similarly nonchalant conception of mold; that it's something that merely causes some allergies and sniffles for sensitive members of the population. Toxic mold secretes _neurotoxins_ which will 100% destroy your life for years, if you get a bad enough exposure. Read some of the experiences of mold survivors in this thread or elsewhere to get a sense of how bad this can be: it's horror-movie stuff. Source: been through mold exposure myself. It wrecked my life for 5 years, and I still have lingering aftereffects.

by davemp 3y ago

baobabKoodaa 3y ago

> Dealing with mold is pretty easy, just get everything dry. No, that's not enough. Dormant/dead mold can still cause air quality problems. In most cases damaged material needs to be replaced. In some cases it's sufficient to isolate the damaged material to reduce its impact on air quality. I'm from Finland and it seems that we treat mold much more seriously compared to other countries. I don't know if Finnish people have a genetic or environmental effect that makes people much more susceptible to get symptoms in moldy buildings, but it's super weird reading about how other countries treat mold...

giantg2 3y ago
In fairness, they did say monitoring air quality was part of the solution. If you get it dry and clean any visible mold, then the air tests come back fine, it shouldn't be an issue. The air tests are the only way to really know.
- dumbfounder 3y ago
  Are you talking about those petri dishes you put out? I have heard from a trusted mold expert that they just always show up positive. I don't know that I trust that, but the problem is that every house actually has mold, and in many places, and who knows what's actually contributing to the problems. Are massive air purifiers enough to mitigate the issues? Can you just tackle the surface molds? Maybe these questions are answered in the mold course, I need to take it asap.
  - baobabKoodaa 3y ago
    > Are massive air purifiers enough to mitigate the issues? As far as I know, air purifiers do not filter mold related particles in the air to any useful amount.
    - ponector 3y ago
      Depends on the model. HEPA filters can filter mold particles.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    The petri dishes are for ID and yeah theyll be positive. Real air quality spore measures require a filter disk and vacuum. Then you need to compare counts inside vs outside. There will always be some level, which is why it's important to compare with ambient outdoor levels. Some say you even need multiple samples at varying weather conditions. Then types are important too.
- baobabKoodaa 3y ago
  It's not possible to reliably test if the air has harmful amounts/species of mold or not. The air quality tests contaminate very easily and even when they don't contaminate, there is a lot of uncertainty with the results, and given any particular results, different people will opine different interpretations of them...
  - giantg2 3y ago
    The filter/vacuum testing is pretty good. You do need a baseline to compare it to, which is often the exterior spore count. Yes, the recommended actions can be all over the place.
ponector 3y ago
Yes, for European it is weird to read. I think this is a big issue in US because the way they build houses, mainly with wood and gypsum. In case of water damage it is really hard to dry those materials.
digging 3y ago
Typically in the US, nobody at any point in the process gives a shit if a home is or will become moldy, except sometimes the person living in the home. It's especially bad for renters who in many states have almost no legal protections (and if they do have them, accessing them is incredibly difficult).

notslow 3y ago

> Afaik mold is only a big topic because of lawyers seeing a nice liability and the media a spooky story. Unfortunately, mold is also a growing health concern for a sizable portion of the population. My family got severely ill from a moldy house, and it is taking us years to fully recover. The longer we have been aware the more and more folks we find are dealing with something similar. The EPA Guide is a great start, but in our experience lacks some situational nuance that might increase its helpfulness. Each person reacts differently mold, some folks are just more sensitive than others. There are no federal standards for mold, either for allowable amounts in your home or guidelines for construction. So depending on your health response you may in fact need to go crazy tearing apart your house to hunt for mold. After talking with ~30 different mold remediators, inspectors, remodeling contractors, etc. We got ~30 different responses for possible causes for mold in our our home. Ultimately, the cost to fix the true sources of mold in our home (due the sources being related to construction practices around the foundation) was equivalent to new construction. We ended up tearing down the moldy house. We're hoping to move into our new house late next spring!

giantg2 3y ago
Some people charge insane prices. I can't believe a foundation issue would cost as much as new construction. It's not that hard to put in a French drain, even if the house needs to be cribbed up due to structural issues.
- notslow 3y ago
  I know, seems crazy from the outside looking in, but nothing was particularly outrageously priced (and we did get several estimates from all sorts of people). To be fair, it wasn't just the foundation. Because of the mold in the basement the rest of the house also became contaminated and needed to be remediated (and my family is now super sensitive). I will also note that this during COVID so prices were somewhat higher than they are now. Believe me we did not set out to tear down our house, but that ended up being the best way to address the issues with the old house.
  - 3y ago

gregwebs 3y ago

It is becoming a big topic because more people are becoming sensitive to mold exposure and more time is being spent indoors. Think of how the prevalence of allergies has increased dramatically in our society. Something similar may be happening with mold except at orders of magnitude lower prevalence. Actually there are theories that similar pathways are involved with allergies and mold- that mold triggers immune reactions just like allergies. When I learned about mold sensitivity I got concerned and started doing mold tests and looking out for mold exposure but eventually realized that nobody in my family is mold sensitive. The "not a big deal" attitude is right for most people, but we should be sensitive to those that are highly mold sensitive.

kijin 3y ago
Exposure to mold is also likely to be correlated with socioeconomic status, especially in more humid parts of the country. Think what kind of people are most likely to live in rundown houses (or even basements!) barely above the water table, without a functioning HVAC unit. Mold is the kind of problem that is at most a nuisance for people who have the means to do something about it, but seemingly unsolvable for people who actually need a solution.
- notslow 3y ago
  This! One of the best solutions to prevent mold is to improve energy efficiency. There are an increasing number of grant programs and Housing improvement initiatives available, but still those improvements are out of reach for a lot of people. We live in the Southeast US which is incredibly humid and so many houses have issues.
bonton89 3y ago
Houses are a lot tighter than they were in the past which makes it harder for them to "dry out" unless you have some kind of air circulation system. My house certainly doesn't and it wouldn't be easy to retrofit.
- giantg2 3y ago

nix0n 3y ago

> just get everything dry In many places this is not easy.

mattfields 3y ago

This is, with no intended disespect, both absolutely false and dangerously blithely ignorant. Unfortunately most of the population (including medical doctors) also has a similarly nonchalant conception of mold; that it's something that merely causes some allergies and sniffles for sensitive members of the population. Toxic mold secretes _neurotoxins_ which will 100% destroy your life for years, if you get a bad enough exposure. Read some of the experiences of mold survivors in this thread or elsewhere to get a sense of how bad this can be: it's horror-movie stuff. Source: been through mold exposure myself. It wrecked my life for 5 years, and I still have lingering aftereffects.