what will stop it from growing?

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we: > > received a lot of rain in our area and while checking out the progress: > > today, I found a bunch of mold in the walls. Will the mold eventually: die: > if: > > it's a dry environment or will it keep growing in the gypsum boardpaper: > and: > > surrounding wood? Any help you folks could provide would beappreciated.: > >: > > Thanks,: > >: > > : > > XjacoffelX@...

----- Original Message ----- From: Haughton

Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2001 12:58 PM

Subject: moldy construction and alternitives to them

Subject: Mold in New Housesfrom the IAQ List - an excellent, thought-provoking post by Steve Temes. Iunderstand that Dr. Craner is involved in helping educate buildersabout this problem. There is also some research available where theresearcher actually followed the storage of the building components andobserved moldy lumber being used in construction.From: Temes <AirwaysEnv@...>Subject: Mold in New HousesMold in new construction has been one of my pet peeves for many years.In the last few weeks, a mold remediation project I am familiar withinvolved the removal of a length of triple 2x10 span girder at greatexpense. The costs were for an engineering study to design support for thefloor in order to replace the girder. The subfloor for the room above thegirder had to be removed in the process, with all sorts of complications.As any good framing contractor knows, you install the moldiest pieces oflumber where they won't show. So the center piece of 2x10 in the girderwas the moldiest and precluded the consideration of treatment in place.Several floor joists were also heavily contaminated with visible blackmold.The project had to do with a sewer waste line that leaked onto a gypsumfirewall and the floor. No water directly impacted the moldy framingmembers on the basement ceiling. However, the elevated relative humidityin the basement had caused the mold to grow extensively off of the surfaceof the lumber. In other words, the mold was in the grain when it came outof the lumber mill but was raised well off of the milled surface after ithad been in the damp basement.The remediation contractor would not even propose the job unless he couldremove the moldy floor joists and girder for fear that he would not passclearance testing (another necessary topic of discussion for our group).The point is that mold spores, when placed in a damp environment, willgerminate. When they grow into a 3-D patch of fuzz rather than remaininside the wood grain, the spores can become airborne and occupant exposurewill occur and new spores will find new amplification sites, ad infinitum.If these moldy pieces of lumber were flagged in the new construction, itwould have saved thousands of dollars in the remediation as well asprevented occupant exposure to spores.Ironically, the contractor actually had to "remediate" the new pieces oflumber he had purchased to replace the contaminated joists before heinstalled them. No kidding. And these were the best hand-picked piecesthat the local lumber yard had available.I have posted on this topic before. I would like to see local constructioncode enforcement officers fail framing inspections when they find"excessively" moldy lumber. Wood comes from the forest with mold on and init. It comes out of the mill with mold on it - some grades of lumber moreso than others. Then it is sometimes transported and stored wet before itgets to a job site where it can sit in a mud puddle for weeks. I think theframed house that gets wet in the rain until it is sided is only a verysmall part of the problem.This post is in no way intended to be in support of Kenn's borate treatmentprocedures, which I am not familiar with, but it does point out a scenariothat could have been avoided if the "new" lumber didn't already containviable mold spores. I would prefer to see moldy wood not leave the lumbermill rather than install it and spray it with something. But once it is onthe job site and being used, maybe that is all you can do to help thesituation.Steve Temes, CHMMIndustrial HygienistAirWays Environmental Services