The new homeowners are finding mold weeks.
Even months later. It is a problem.
Pete, Georges of Advantaclean of the
Piedmont is seeing all of the time.
He is here to answer questions that you
have about mold in your place of residence.
You can get those questions
answered by texting those questions
directly to 3363795775. Remember,
this is text only so please don't call,
but please do text in your questions right.
First and foremost, Pete,
let's go over like some.
Fast facts when it comes to mold and
when I looked at the fast facts on mold,
I could not believe how fast
mold actually grows.
We're talking just hours. Oh
yeah. Hi Tonya, thanks for having me.
Mold can grow and as
quickly as 24 to 48 hours.
Given it the perfect conditions.
Moisture, water temperature
and a good food source which
is all around us everywhere.
You can see visual mold growth begin
to occur as early as 448 hours. OK,
and it's all about excessive moisture
and that can really be anywhere.
That's right, moisture control
is the utmost importance.
You can have in your home or
business being able to control
the humidity or bulk water,
meaning standing water and across base
or leaking pipes or bathtub overflow.
Those are all opportunities for mold to grow.
If those items aren't cleaned up
or dried quick enough.
Alright, so folks may have
been looking down that list,
but I kind of need to know
like why can't bleach kill it?
'cause that's what we would
all kill it with is bleach.
Bleach has some qualities
that does help to kill mold,
but it's at a very low level.
Majority of bleach is at 90% or 80% water,
and we know adding water to a mold
situation will end up causing
more harm than good, right?
And so there is like kind of a mixture
we can use if we want to get rid
of mold. Sure, we advantaclean.
We always recommend an EPA registered
antimicrobial solution for those
that's not available to you.
There are some home remedies.
Hydrogen peroxide is a good product.
Vinegar is a good homoeopathic type product.
Let's see, I wouldn't
recommend mixing those two.
Do your research and make sure you
understand what you're dealing with
when you're trying to treat mold
on your end.
OK, so either hydrogen peroxide or vinegar,
but not the two together.
That way, OK, probably not alright.
So here's the thing to mold.
It can start making you feel bad.
Not all the time, because we all kind
of have mold in our house, right?
'cause we live with bathrooms
and bathrooms always have
some kind of mold somewhere.
Oftentimes they do.
Mold is ubiquitous to our environment,
it's everywhere all the time,
but in safe levels.
Everyone is different.
Everyone has different allergies.
Everyone has different symptoms,
a older population and our younger
population tend to be more
susceptible to the effects of mold.
Some of those effects could be simple.
Scratchy, scratchy throat.
Runny nose allergy like symptoms.
Other ones can be more severe.
Respiratory issues long term.
Long term effects with to
your immune system and and
headaches and that sort of thing.
So don't ignore those those situations
if you realize that if you're
outside of your normal allergy season
and you're still continuing to.
I feel the effects of those
things you may want to do
some further investigation, all right.
Well, Speaking of that folks,
either are buying houses,
or maybe they're seeing after
awhile in their own apartments,
or something that mold has come
into certain places and a lot
of people say oh, OK, well,
I'll just call the insurance
to get them to fix the mold or
do the eradication of the mold,
'cause that can be expensive and
insurance does not cover mold. Let's
talk about that. That's correct.
It's a very common misconception
that your homeowners insurance will.
Include any damage caused by mold,
and oftentimes it's explicitly
says it does not cover that.
If you would need to have a
specific mold policy coverage in
your and I would recommend talking
to your insurance worker for that.
However, water damage can cause
mold as a secondary damage,
and it can be very expensive
to left untreated.
All right, and we do have kind of
a graphic that I wanted to make
sure everybody saw so they could
see specifically that mold is not
covered by insurance and that is
something that I think a lot of folks.
It is a common misconception.
And usually that's because mold
means that something hasn't
happened just right then and there.
It means that something has been
happening for quite some time.
Right and in the insurance world,
mold can oftentimes point towards
possible neglect or or not mitigating
your damages quickly enough and.
It's just not. It's not something
that they like to talk about.
It's a. It's a bad word
and insurance that is all right.
One way to monitor and keep mold
away is to see how much humidity
we have in the house and so
you have a humidity monitor.
What does that even look like?
What does it do? Why do we need it?
This is a very simple product you can
find at your local hardware store.
This is a humidistat or
a weather thermometer.
As you would see in the stores.
This is measuring temperature
and humidity at a real time in
your home or in your crawlspace.
It's a wireless sensor,
so you take the sensor,
put it into your crawl space or attic,
and then you can use the digital
screen here to get real time
readings on the temperature and
humidity in your crawlspace.
And here's a good fact to know.
Mold can grow at 60% humidity or greater.
So check your conditions in your crawlspace.
Use one of these sensors.
If you're seeing that the humidity
in your crawl space or other parts
of your house for that matter
consistently stay above 60% humidity,
there's a very strong likelihood
that you're going to have an
environment conducive for mold growth.