Friday, January 25, 2008

Two Great Ways To Reduce Mold

There are a number of things that you can do to prevent mold growth in your home, but stopping the mold spores from spreading even though they are already in the air is also important. It is important to realize that mold spores are always going to exist in the air that you breathe unless you are in a hospital or laboratory clean room, but reducing the amount of these spores in the air is not as difficult as you may think.

The first thing that you need to do is get rid of any mold infections that already exist in the home. You can do this a few different ways, depending on how far the contamination has advanced. If you try to scrub it off the wall and it comes back a few days or a week later, then it is embedded into the drywall and you need to replace it as soon as possible. No one wants to have to replace a section of drywall in their home, but if mold is embedded into it, this is the only way to get it out of the house. Any building materials that are contaminated with mold will need to be replaced.

After you either do that yourself or have a professional do it for you, you will want to purchase a vacuum cleaner that has a HEPA filter on it. HEPA filters will remove about 99.7% of all particles from the air that is expelled by your vacuum, which means that mold spores, dust mites, and etcetera will not be tossed back up into the air you are breathing when you vacuum.

Another appliance you will want to purchase, especially if you have allergies, is an air purifier that is equipped with a HEPA filter. This is one of the best investments that you can make for your home, since it will keep the air free of the same kind of particles that the filter on your vacuum cleaner will. It removes the mold spores from the air and thus stops them from landing and forming colonies in your house.

Even though these are two great appliances to help prevent mold growth in your house, you still need to do your best to make sure that water leaks and other moisture problems in the home do not develop. HEPA filters only remove 99.7% of particles in the air, which means that there are still another 0.03% floating around and it only takes one.