Mold Remediation
Cost Effective Restoration
Non Chemical Restoration & Fumigation Mold & Water Damaged
Books Documents
by Meggan King
COST EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS
Recently, mold, bacteria and their associated
problems have been getting an increasing amount of attention. Where has
this “new” problem come from, and why all the concern?
Let us first set the record straight. Mold and bacteria are not new; they
have been around since the dawn of time. It is only lately that we have
begun to pay attention to them. They are found in both indoor and outdoor
air and have been able to colonize virtually every known surface. There are
mold spores and bacteria in our hair and on our skin. They are found in dirt,
books, documents, files, pillows, refrigerators, inside wall cavities, in the
ocean, growing on trees and you could even find them on the windshield of your
car. They are involved in virtually every aspect of our lives whether we know
it or not. To some, this may sound alarming, but it shouldn’t be. Of the
literally thousands of different species of mold, there are only a few dozen that
really cause us any problems.
Sensitive individuals can be allergic to mold in the same way
that people are allergic to pollen or animal dander. Daily outdoor mold and
pollen count levels are commonly reported in the weather. But what about mold
indoors? Do we need to be concerned about it? That can be a difficult question
to answer. The best answer to that question is “maybe” and “sometimes”. No
matter how hard one tries, it is simply not possible to completely eliminate
mold from a home, library or school, etc. The only thing that can effectively be
done is to try and control colony growth.
Mold has 5 growth requirements:
1) Food source
2) Air
3) Surface for growth
4) Desirable temperature
5) Moisture
To control mold growth one of the requirements must be eliminated. Since
requirements 1-4 are next to impossible to control (the food source for mold
growing in a home may be the home’s own building material like wood and
wallboard, that really can’t be controlled). However, we can control moisture. Stick with this motto, “No water, no problem”. If there has been a recent
incursion of water into an area, such as a basement flood or a burst pipe, it
can make conditions very favorable for mold growth. The first thing to do is
FIX the water problem (a “band-aid” approach is not the solution). Once the
problem has been fixed then the moisture can be controlled. The easiest way to
do this is by adjusting temperature and humidity. For mold to grow on a
surface, the relative humidity of the surface needs to be above 70%. If the
relative humidity can be brought down somewhat below 70% the mold will stop
growing. The growth surface can be almost anything, i.e. leather books, papers, files, vellum documents, furs, textiles, upholstery, insulation, clothing,
wood and many other materials.
Mold growth in homes can be quite a common problem, especially after a flood
or water leak. If these problems are not addressed very quickly and properly it
can lead to serious issues. Sometimes a homeowner may not even know there has
been a leak until mold has already begun to grow. When mold growth becomes
visible it is very important to track down the source of the problem and FIX
it. Often, when there has been a flood, the homeowners insurance company will
arrange to have a restoration service come in and dry down the structure. This
will normally involve the use of fans and dehumidifiers. This treatment may be
sufficient, but in many cases it is not. It all depends on the severity of the
water incursion. If there has been standing water, a dehumidifier will probably
not combat the problem. If drywall gets wet it becomes useless and needs to be
replaced. The case is the same for insulation; if it gets wet it must be
replaced. Also, remember that if a surface is coated in a latex paint, it can’t
breathe. That means that a dehumidifier can only dry the paint surface, not
what is behind it. Although the homeowner and the insurance company may think
that the problem is solved, it is actually getting worse. In a matter of days
or weeks, there will be mold growing behind the walls.
How do you handle valuable or sentimental items that you want to save if
they have become wet or been exposed to mold? At our restoration facility, we
have a number of restoration treatments available. We can vacuum freeze-dry
material to remove water and use plasma to decontaminate and kill mold and
bacteria on books, documents and files. Our restoration treatment will also
neutralize odors that may result from mold or other sources.
We had a case where a pipe burst in a condominium. After the pipe was
repaired, a restoration and remediation team came in and “dried” the structure
with dehumidifiers, but a few weeks later mold began to grow all over the
walls. We discovered that all of the studs behind the walls were steel. This
meant that there was a trough where the stud fit into the beam. The trough was
filled with water and that was the source of the mold. No amount of drying with a
dehumidifier would have been able to suck the water from the trough out through
the wall. Had the restoration and remediation efforts included removing a
section of the drywall, they would have discovered the source of moisture and the
whole situation probably could have been avoided.
In a recent court case in Texas, a jury awarded a family $32 million for mold
damage. The insurance company was said to have committed fraud in the way it
dealt with the family. The company delayed repairs for a water leak. Had
repairs and proper restoration and remediation been addressed quickly, the
lawsuit may have been avoided entirely!
Mold problems can also be of great concern for libraries, archives and
museums, especially when they receive donated collections. These collections of
books and documents may have been stored in a damp attic, basement or
crawlspace before they were donated. Before these documents and books can be
introduced to the library, archives or museum, they should be properly treated or
decontaminated so they will not contaminate the rest of the collection.
At Midwest Freeze-Dry Ltd., we have the capability to dry, remove
excess moisture, decontaminate and deodorize valuable articles. Restoration
treatments can be customized to suit the specific needs of individual
situations. Using vacuum freeze-dry and plasma treatment technology, we can
treat your material without using harmful chemicals like ethylene oxide. In
fact, we use inert gases in our restoration treatment so there are no harmful
side effects to people or the environment. Our cost-effective restoration
treatment will kill any microorganism, insect or insect larva contaminating your
material.
Plasma (the 4th state of matter, essentially a gaseous energy) treatment is
becoming an increasingly popular method of sterilization for medical instruments
because it is clean and works efficiently. There are no harmful gasses or waste
for disposal.
Johnson & Johnson markets a small plasma sterilization system for the
sterilization of medical instruments in hospitals. Research in plasma technology
is being conducted by many governmental agencies such as the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. They have funded research on using filters combined with
plasma sterilization for use in buildings, hospitals and homes. Researchers at
a few universities around the country and at Los Alamos National Laboratory are
investigating using plasma for the decontamination of chemical and biological
warfare agents such as mustard gas, nerve gas and anthrax spores.
Our cost-effective, restoration plasma treatment can effectively kill
microorganisms. When books, documents and files are placed into a dielectric
field, plasma can be created. As described in one of our other articles, the
plasma energy causes water molecules to flip around, which essentially scrambles
DNA. Using a bombardment technique, we can sputter different gasses to attack
and kill virtually anything in a matter of hours, ranging from problematic
indoor molds (Penicillium, Aspergillus, Cladosporium, Alternaria, Stachybotrys,
etc…) to even the most resistant bacterial endospores capable of hibernating for
thousands of years.
So how can simply spinning water molecules kill insects and microorganisms? Every living thing contains water. The more water a living thing contains the
easier it is to kill. That is why we can kill insects with only minimal
exposure to plasma, because they are full of water. Fungi (mold, yeast,
mushrooms, mildew) and bacteria, on the other hand, are a little more difficult to
kill because they are capable of forming spores and endospores which are
incredibly resistant to heat, desiccation, harsh chemicals, and radiation to
name a few. Spores and endospores have a very low water content, which is why
many conventional methods don’t work well.
Many decontamination and sterilization procedures are only capable of
treating small quantities of material or small objects. This is perfectly
adequate in many restoration cases, but what about large quantities of material
and bigger objects? Our cost-effective restoration treatment chamber has a
commercial size capacity so we can accommodate most needs.
Please feel free to search our website for more information on restoration,
or contact us via e-mail
mfd7326@aol.com, phone or FAX (contact information is available on our home
page).
