How To Remove Mould and Dampness

What Causes Mould

Mould grows when moisture creeps into organic surfaces. Most commonly, when water leaks onto wood or onto dry wall. 

Even damp or high humidity rooms can become infested with mould. This is because they have little to no ventilation to let the humid air escape.

How To Fight Mould And Damp

To our clients, we often suggest attacking mould from two fronts.

  1. Short Term Direct Application
  2. Long Term Prevention

Short Term Direct Application

Isolate The Leak

Firstly, anyone experience mould needs to address the source of the problem. It could be a leaky pipe or a roof leak that simply needs a builder or plumber to patch. 

(If your mould doesn’t stem from a direct source, don’t fret. It’s most likely from high levels of humidity in the room or home. In that case, you’ll need to implement the long term prevention with a home dehumidifier like SolarVenti)

Fumigate With Zydox

Once all the leaks are isolated, we can now remove all that ugly and unhealthy mould! At this stage, we recommend you grab yourself a packet of Zydox. Zydox is a non-evasive bleach-like product. You simply activate the Zydox, leave it to fumigate in the mould effected room. Then after 4 hours, you come back and simply wipe the mould from the walls. Easy!

Activating The Zydox

Zydox comes in sachet with a little plastic box. To fumigate the room, 

  • Close up all the doors and windows of the room.
  • cover the base of the plastic box with water.
  • Open the sachet.
  • Place the sachet inside the box, closing it the plastic tub.
  • Leave the room.
  • 4 hours later, come in. Take a deep breath of the healthy, fresh smelling room. 
  • Open the windows and wipe the mould from the walls.

Long Term Prevention

Now that the mould symptoms have been removed. Time to take care of the problem: too much humidity creating a damp room.

To remove dampness from a room, we need to dry it out with fresh air from outside. That is, we need some ventilation.

There are two types of ventilation techniques 

  1. Positive Input Ventilation (PIV)
  2. Negative Output Ventilation

Basically pumping air in or pumping air out.

Positive Input Ventilation (PIV) 

Solair positive ventilation principle is about whole home ventilation, dehumidification and condensation control.  It achieves this by using a fan to pump fresh, filtered, dry and clean air inside the home.

Negative Output Ventilation

Negative output ventilation is where a fan draws large volumes of air out of sub-floor areas and wet floors. The sub floor area then is left with dry air - reducing mould & removing damp.  

By drying the home from underneath the structure level, moisture laden air is diluted, displaced and replaced to control humidity levels.

Ventilation Fans

We recommend a SolarVenti system to combat damp head on. A SolarVenti is a unit that dehumidifies and dries any room. It does this by taking in air from outside, filtering it, warming it and drying it before it pumps it into the home. Ventilating it completely. It’ll put no strain on your bill either. It’s a solar powered system and the filter never needs replacing.

Vapour Barriers

On our jobs we also use vapour barriers and membranes to isolate sub-floor and ‘dead room’ damp and moisture from penetrating to living areas. For all those interested, we have a full working solar powered heating and cooling system at The Arts Barn in Kariong. 

Bonus Health Benefits

The lower humidity levels also substantially reduce dust mite populations. No mould and less dust mites provide significant relief to asthma sufferers and everyone’s indoor health. 

Additionally, sub-floor toxins and smells normally enter into your kitchen and living areas through floor boards and drywalls. These systems provide a barrier from smells and toxins leaving you with fresh, healthy, clean, dry home with no mould. 

Conclusion

Apply all these solutions and you’ll see the success we’ve had eliminating surface condensation and damp from homes - the main cause for mould (mold) growth.