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.

A Couple of Great Ways To Reduce Mold

While you can certainly prevent mold by preventing moisture problems in your home from developing, there is an extra level of protection or two available that you can take and they will serve not only to remove mold spores from the air in the home, but also to remove other particles that can cause problems for those who have respiratory illnesses, asthma, and allergies. The answer is in the HEPA filter.

HEPA filters are a kind of filter that is put into vacuum cleaners and air purifiers that will get rid of around 97.3% of all particles in the air, including dust mites, mold spores, pet dander, and etcetera that are down to 0.3 microns in size. This is really the cleanest air that you will probably ever breathe and you can have it inside your house in both of these appliances. Smoke from cigarettes and other types of particles need to be removed from the indoor air supply because of the amount of time that people are spending in their homes and offices these days instead of outside, where air circulates much more easily. Since this is where people are spending most of their time now, the air supply needs to remain as clean as possible not only to help with breathing difficulties, but also to stop odors and mold growth from developing.

A HEPA filter in a vacuum cleaner is great because it pulls all of the particles out of your carpet that cause odors and allergic reactions and captures them in the filter, while expelling clean air back into your home.

An air purifying system that has a HEPA filter can also be purchased for a few hundred dollars or more, depending on the size of the residence you need to service. Each purifier has a certain amount of square footage of indoor space that it can filter effectively.

These are a couple of appliances that you can purchase to help stop the mold growth in your home, but the practice of preventing water leaks and humidity problems in the home should not go away just because you have purchased these. Your new HEPA filters cannot do the job alone. Another thing that you can do that involves moving air is installing exhaust vents in the humid rooms of your home like the bathroom and the kitchen. These do not expel clean air back into your house, but they do take humid and hot air out, reducing the amount of water absorbed by ceilings and upper walls.