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How do I clean mold on walls ?
Note: If you have a mold removal or remediation need and want to talk to a professional , please call Jeff at 410-458-5371. Please only calls in the Maryland area.
This is a question I hear often . Hi my name is Jeff Cohn with SI Restoration in the Baltimore and Washington DC area. As a person with 35 years experience in mold removal and remediation , as the saying goes , " if I had a dime for every time I heard that question.
Ok so lets answer the question " How do I clean mold on walls "
The easy answer is just get a rag or cloth and some cleaner and wipe off the mold . Maybe in an addition , you go Home Depot and Lowes hardware stores , and buy a product of Kilz or similar products . Now these products so a great job on what their product is designed for . To block the visual opportunity of seeing the previous mold . Killz has on their label of their mold blocking paint , the ability to block growth of the very surface .
Without doing extensive experiments their claim is correct . When you use their product , it does what it says . But mold has roots .
Mold Roots :
Mold roots like a plant grow inside your drywall or hydroscopic material . So even if you wipe off the mold off the surface of the wall and use Kilz , you still leave roots living inside your walls . Mold roots continue to grow and then find a new place to " pop up " . Yes you don't see the mold now , but days or months you will see the mold grow outside of the kilt painted area . The only way to be 100 % sure that you have removed the mold and its roots is to cut out the drywall. Now if the mold growth is on wood studs or concrete block you need to sand down the surface then use a kilz or similar product . These surfaces are dense and challenging for mold roots to grow through .
Creating airborne mold spores while cleaning mold on walls .
Let's say that you still want to clean the mold off the wall and use a paint blocker like Kilz. By doing this you have created a new problem and liability . Remember that mold is a living breathing creature in other words similar to a plant . As you approach the mold either with a cleaning product or agitation, the mold senses this and as defense mechanism shoots out mold spores ( think spores like seeds ) . So now as the spores fly though the air ( microscopic ) , they will land on new surfaces . To make matters worse if you have someone in the home or building that is mold sensitive , they could breath in these spores and have health issues . To make matters even more worse ( sorry about that ), if you have a tenant in the house or building they could sue you for causing a health issue .
How do you clean the mold off the wall and capture the mold spores . Although I can't tell you what to do exactly for liability reasons , I can tell you that as a mold remediation expert , we would seal the area around where the mold is and set up negative air to prevent mold spores spreading .
SI Restoration mold clean up services are available in the following Maryland areas :
Towson
Pikesville
Catonsville
Bel Air
Baltimore City
Baltimore County
Dundalk
Essex
Laurel
Parkton
Westminister