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My husband
and I are purchasing a cottage that has a crawl space with a dirt
floor. No one has been living in the cottage for at least two years
and unfortunately, no one has opened the vents to allow air to flow
through. There is a white mold all over the dirt floor and I am
assuming up the foundation block as well. In addition, there is a
very strong, musty odor in the cottage, although this could just be as
a result of being closed up for so long. We would like to treat the
mold ourselves. Will spraying a solution of bleach do the trick? If
not, please advise what we need to do.-Sheila
, Pennsylvania
A cottage that has not been lived in
for two years, and many cottages in general, are at risk for
developing mustiness. This is the case for a variety of reasons. The
most important of these is that when people are away the cottage is
maintained (in some cases not maintained) very differently.
The most important difference between
a cottage and a regular home (particularly up north) is the
temperature in the dwelling. In some cases owners winterize the
cottage shutting off the water and heat. Others maintain temperatures
conditions in the 40’s or 50’s to prevent pipes from freezing.
Though the air in a building often
gets dryer in cold weather, humidity conditions in the cool/cold of an
unheated/partially heated building may exceed 70%, the threshold for
mold growth on a variety of building materials. Under such conditions
the mustiness one smells may be in a variety of building
materials/furnishings. Such mustiness may be virtually impossible to
eliminate. Most cottage/second home owners don’t even try. The musty
odor is just something one gets used to in cottage/cabin life.
The whiteness on the soil may or may
not be mold. You may attempt to kill it by having a pest control
company spray it with a polyborate solution. This will not get rid of
the mold spores and exposures associated with them. It would be
better to scrape off the top ¼” of soil and dump it away from the
cottage. This should be followed by placing heavy duty plastic over
the soil to minimize moisture movement from the ground into the
crawlspace and then into living spaces.
Because the vents were closed and
white growth on soil is present, it would be prudent to inspect floor
joists and flooring surfaces. In high humidity crawlspace
environments, these materials are at high risk of mold infestation and
even structural deterioration. If there is evidence of significant
darkening of crawlspace wood materials, the presence of white, brown
or black strains, floor joists/floors are likely to be mold infested
and need to be remediated. Note the discoloration in this digital
(Click to enlarge).
In remediating a crawlspace, the structurally
unsound materials should be removed and replaced. Mold infested wood
materials should be initially vacuumed (minimum 5HP suction) brushed
(stiff brush) vacuumed, and then coated with a spray-applied paint
product (such as Foster products (http://www.fosterproducts.com),
that contains an octoborate biocide.
November 17, 2003
Indoor
Environmental Quality (2000), Thad Godish Ph.D., C.I.H
Direct E-mail
00tjgodish@bsu.edu
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