How to Remove Mold at Home

Many households living in humid areas experience mold problems. For one, a heavy mold infestation can ruin the appearance of your home. Such issues create black spots on your ceiling, walls, and carpets. Moreover, mold poses a serious health risk. Children and family members with weak immunities can exhibit allergic reactions after exposure to mold spores.

Therefore, it’s essential to learn how to remove mold at home. By managing the situation early, you can save future expenses since you won’t have to replace the affected materials. So how do you remove mold at home?

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it.

Step 1: Take Precautions Before You Remove Mold

Before removing a major mold infestation, take some safety precautions. First, you need to protect yourself from breathing the spores. Secondly, ensure mold doesn’t spread from one room to another.

Here’s how you should dress for the job.

• Wear old clothing and shoes which you can throw away after use. Or clothes you can easily launder after the job. Ensure they cover your hands and legs completely.
• Use a tight mask for your nose, gloves to cover your hands, and goggles to protect your eyes.

In addition to protecting yourself, you need to contain the spores to avoid spreading them to other rooms in the house. In that case, you should:

• Turn off the air conditioning system and cover all doors and ducts. Mold can hide in such places and then reappear after you finish cleaning. 
• Use a sprayer to moisten moldy surfaces to prevent the spread of airborne spores.  
• Put infested carpets and other materials in airtight plastic bags for disposal.
• Place a cheap or old box fan at the window to blow the air out of the room. This will keep the wind from blowing the spores back into the house.

Step 2: Remove and Dispose of What You Can’t Clean

Depending on the kind of walls you use and the extent of the infestation, you may have to clean or replace them. Some materials like carpets, wallpapers, wall insulation materials, and drywalls are hard to clean. If the infestation is beyond cleaning, cut the materials into pieces and put them in polythene bags for disposal.

Pierce through the wall using a screwdriver to assess the extent of the damage. Take care not to interfere with electrical cables passing through the walls. It might be better if you turn off the main power supply. Then remove all infested areas that you can’t clean and plan for replacement.

Step 3: Clean up and Repair

Cleaning mold on surfaces like ceramic tiles, concrete, and hardwood is relatively easy. Mix four cups of water with half a cup of bleach and a little detergent. The bleach will kill the mold, and the detergent will wash it off the surface.

You can use a spray bottle or a sponge to apply the mixture to the moldy surface. Then use a brush to scrub the mold off. As you do so, your gloves and goggles will protect you from contamination with the bleach.    

Give the breach enough time to act and penetrate the surface. Re-apply the mixture and scrub several times until the mold comes off. Then, instead of rinsing it, let it dry. Wash or vacuum the room to complete the process. Also, clean the vacuum cleaner after using it.

You may have to dispose of the filter of the vacuum cleaner and the box fan since they’re hard to clean. Once you’re sure you’ve removed all mold, replace your walls with new materials.

Step 4: Take Preventive Measures

To prevent a mold resurgence, keep your house dry by ensuring there’s no water leakage. Plus, take steps to ensure good ventilation in the kitchen and bathrooms for moist air to escape. Use an oil-based primer to seal wood surfaces where mold can hide. Finally, consider repainting the walls using paint that has mildewcide.