Don't Let Mold Take Over Your Indian River County Home

8/1/2017 (Permalink)

When you discover mold in your Indian River home, call SERVPRO of Vero Beach!

Mold Remediation And Restoration

Ask owners about protecting their home, and you hear about hurricanes, fires, home invasion, and flooding. If they mention mold at all, it is almost as an afterthought. Since the costs to restore or repair homes from mold are in the millions each year, the mold should be higher on the list than keeping the neighborhood dogs off the front lawn.

Stopping mold damage in Indian River County is not a simple process, but SERVPRO has decades of experience in getting the job done, no matter how far mold spores have grown through and sometimes into a home. To understand how pervasive a mold infestation can be and how difficult it is to get rid of one, it is helpful to know how they grow and spread.

Mold spores are smaller than the smallest seed. A group of thousands is just slightly larger than each dot on a pair of dice. They stay dormant until something disturbs them. The cause can be a breeze or a hard shake of some type. The spores which break away remain dormant unless they encounter enough moisture to cause them to expand.

Once they begin to expand, the spores send out hyphae. These structures grow across and into surfaces, looking for food and additional moisture. Favorite food sources are building materials such as ceiling tiles and drywall. They also feed and grow rapidly on carpet fibers like cotton, wool, and rayon. The temperature ranges most molds expand under is from 68 to 86 degrees, but some grow in temperatures as high as 122 degrees.

The way we stop mold growth is to eliminate one of those factors, moisture, food, or temperature. Removing every food source is impossible and permanently lowering or raising the temperature is simply too expensive. We use pumps and smaller extractors to remove standing water and then test the surrounding air and material for excess moisture.

After testing we set up dehumidifiers and air movers to lower moisture. The dehumidifiers draw water directly out of the air; up to a rate of 30 gallons per day depending on the device we use and the humidity level. Our air movers force warm, dry air over the surface of the affected structural material and other property.

Restoration is not a quick set of procedures, but SERVPRO of Vero Beach understands that the first step to returning your home to a normal condition is to understand the situation and then act quickly. Call us today at (772) 770-0501 to set up an inspection.