6 Essential Things to Know About Mold

Florida’s weather is not kind to its homeowners. Not only do you have to contend with the local heat, but you also have to deal with the humidity and its impacts on your home. If you let your home go unprotected from this type of moisture, you may not only find yourself uncomfortable but unsafe. High levels of humidity can make your foundation and crawl space the ideal incubators for mold. That mold, in turn, can worsen health problems your family may already be experiencing while also dropping the value of your home.

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Dealing With Mold In Your Home

Studies conducted by the CDC indicate that mold is more than just a household nuisance. Mold’s been shown to play directly into the early development of respiratory problems in children, ranging from asthma to infant pulmonary hemosiderosis.

It’s also known to exacerbate conditions including:

• Coughing
• Congestion
• Difficulty breathing
• Wheezing
• Itching eyes and/or skin

As mentioned, mold can also compromise the value of your home, if you’re ever interested in selling it on the market. Mold does more than suggest an excess of moisture in your space. If it goes untended to for an extended period of time, mold can damage your structural supports and compromise the integrity of your foundation. In turn, it makes your home unpleasant and unsafe to live in.

Homes with mold problems that have not been addressed can lose up to 30 percent of their resale value, putting you on your back foot in a fickle housing market.

Identifying Mold In Your Home

Unfortunately, mold comes in many forms. You likely won’t be able to identify the species of mold you’re dealing with right off the bat. You can, however, determine the difference between a healthy home and one that’s become an incubator for mold.

While mold clusters can form at a rapid pace, they’ll just as quickly give themselves away. As such, if you’re searching for mold in your home, you’ll want to keep an eye out for symptoms including:

• Clusters and growths
• Moisture
• Unpleasant or otherwise musty smells
• Trouble breathing

When in doubt, follow your nose. Mold smells more than just unpleasant. It smells musty and wet. If you have a good sense of smell, you can trace a sudden, unpleasant odor to mold clusters that may have started to appear throughout your home.

Finding Mold

The darker, moister and less well-tread an area is within your home, the more likely it is that mold will start to grow there. When you’re on the lookout for mold clusters, you’ll want to start your search in your:

• Crawl space
• Attic
• Bathroom
• HVAC system
• Air ducts

Mold and Moisture

Mold may not get into your home with the help of moisture, but the two forces will certainly band together to make your life more difficult. Mold enters your home in the form of spores and can begin to grow into a cluster within 48 hours of its arrival – but only if your home is unusually damp. By taking steps to eliminate excess moisture from your home, you can starve mold spores of the nutrients they need to grow.

Mold Removal

Mold looks easy to remove from your home, but it’s more stubborn than you might think. You should not try to take mold off of your walls, joints, or out of your crawl space without a mold removal specialist to help. These professionals can bring in the tools you need to remove mold safely and thoroughly. Mold, after all, doesn’t just grow on the surface of your belongings. If you’re not careful, you may find it in your drywall, soft wood, carpet, or furniture.

Preventing Mold From Growing In Your Home

If you want to keep mold out of your home, you’ll need to take active steps to lessen the amount of moisture in the air. While you don’t want to clear all of the humidity away, for the sake of your health, you should work to ensure that no leak or crack can spell trouble for your family’s health of your home’s value.

By waterproofing your foundation and crawl space, you can drive water back from sensitive structural supports and eliminate the conditions that mold needs to grow. You can talk to a foundation and crawl space repair expert in the Orlando, FL, area about what waterproofing measures – including crawl space encapsulation – may be right for you. A home inspection will also let you know whether or not you have any pre-existing damage to contend with.

In either case, Alpha Foundations will be able to provide you with a free quote on the installation or repair services you need to take back your home. Contact us today for a free inspection.