If you have read my last few posts, you might have seen that we had a water leak and now we are dealing with a mold outbreak.
No one wants to deal with mold, but sometimes it just happens. Here is my entire series on how to get rid of mold in your home!
Follow My Whole Series ~ How To Get Rid of Mold in Your Home
Follow along with me on this journey, dare I say…This Mold Journey??
- Yikes A Water Leak! Renovation Time! New Floors, New Kitchen!
- Steps to Take When You Suspect That Mold Is Growing In Your Home
- Demolition Time and Discovering That We Have Mold! Now What?
- How to Get Rid of Mold {Part 1}
- How to Get Rid of Mold {Part 2}
- How to Get Rid of Mold {Part 3}
If you are seeing this series of posts for the first time, I encourage you to start with the first post and work your way through the remainder of the posts. Removing mold is a process and I lay this process out 1 post at a time.
Part 1 ~ How To Get Rid of Mold In Your Home!
I think the hardest thing for us to deal with while going through this whole process is that it takes time to get rid of mold!
There are steps after steps to take to ensure that the mold will be eliminated.
The first step was to build our containment area out into our family room so that the crew had adequate space to work.
Making Sure Everything Is Sealed Up
We hired a professional company that specializes in mold removal. In my case (a pretty severe case), it is not recommended to get rid of mold without professional help. Simply put, we do not have the proper equipment or chemicals to deal with such an outbreak!
Before they started cutting out the mold, which in turn will disturb the mold spores, they need to make sure that the area was COMPLETELY CONTAINED.
That means no gaps in the plastic, no holes or areas where mold particles could escape or go airborne and spread to other areas.
Bringing In Equipment
Once the area is contained, equipment is brought in to filter out the mold particles and to bring the humidity (or water) out of the air.
This is only the first step. Removal of the wall infected will happen in part 2 and purifying the air after that will take some time and patience.
Equipment needed to purify the air, remove the moisture, and to get rid of the mold is:
- 3 HEPA Air Scrubber machines
- 2 Industrial Dehumidifiers
The space will also be wet wiped and wet fogged (or this procedure is also called wet fogging). I will dive into that in the next post.
A Visual (Video) of My Kitchen & Mold!
Anyone a visual person like me? Well here is a video where I give you an up close look at the mold and the equipment and containment area.
Come on in and snag a look at my kitchen in the beginning phases of mold removal.
Jennie Reisner says
Halle, Hi, my sister forwarded your site to me, and I appreciate what you are doing and have done, thank you. My question is what if any, is the difference between mold and mildew, and in treating them. Also, would a large area of cat pee and mildew odor (basement inside wall and space under stairs) be something you feel I should get professional help for ? It seems because of our extremely wet spring, the pee smell actually has wicked in from outside through the concrete bricks of the wall. Apparently I’ve had feral cats stay under my deck, or at least spray there. Again, thanks for your help.
Halle Cottis says
Hi Jennie! Mold and mildew are two completely separate entities. If you think you have black mold, I’d get some professional help. In regards to the cat urine, sounds to me that you might need to seal your inside walls (I’m assuming they are concrete?)…You could also try my natural remedy for removing cat urine from your house. Here is that solution: https://wholelifestylenutrition.com/health/get-rid-of-dog-and-cat-urine-odors-the-all-natural-way/
Patsy says
Do your research at Google