Recent Mold Remediation Posts
Innovative Strategies for Challenging Mold Removal in Oak Ridge
7/22/2024 (Permalink)
Dealing with mold damage in your home can be quite overwhelming. Contact SERVPRO of Oak Ridge for effective remediation services.
Surface Blasting Minimizes Mold Cleanup Damage
As long as conditions are right, mold can grow and cause damage in any home. Oxygen, moisture, and an organic surface to burrow into and consume for ongoing nourishment complete the short list of requirements for microbial growth. All are present in homes in Tennessee's "Secret City." Although today Oak Ridge is a comfortable suburban enclave, it gained fame in the mid-20th century as the headquarters of the World War II Manhattan Project, which focused on developing atomic weapons. Fortunately, fighting back against mold growth does not require a nuclear option. Advances in targeted abrasive technology improve outcomes, saving even porous structures.
Highly Effective Resources for Mold Cleanup
When you need mold removal in Oak Ridge, discover a broader-than-expected range of options by consulting SERVPRO®. Fears that microbial infestation cleanup always requires extensive demolition of building materials disappear when we describe alternatives that retain structures using controlled abrasive blasting. The blasting process uses compressed air or a centrifugal wheel to direct abrasive particles against the surfaces infested and at risk of weakening and destruction by colonies of fungi. Blasting has a clear advantage over hand removal, where surfaces are irregular, recessed, or otherwise hard to reach. The process also saves time, which is essential when responding to rapidly increasing organisms actively damaging materials. Blasting media commonly used include:
- Sodium Bicarbonate (soda)
At a microscopic level, soda is soft yet possesses sharp angles, facilitating abrasive action while minimizing damage to underlying surfaces, utility lines, and wiring. It is also water-soluble, making it easy to remove post-blasting debris.
1/8-inch pellets applied at high speed knock mold organisms off surfaces. When the pellets impact, they explode, and the resulting gas pressure surrounds the mold and forces it to disengage.
Crushed walnut shells used in dry air blasting are another way to strip off mold colonies without damaging structures.
Containment and Debris Collection
Although media blasting reduces demolition and avoids scraping, brushing, and sanding hours, the SERVPRO mold remediation crews still contain the work area with 1.6 mil polyethylene for everyone's safety and wear personal protective equipment (PPE) during the project. Negative pressure air configurations help exhaust the airborne residues through HEPA filters. HEPA-filtered vacuum suction settled debris; we damp-wipe surfaces with EPA-registered products and apply EPA-registered antimicrobials to inhibit mold rebound.
SERVPRO of Loudon & Roane Counties offers innovative and effective professional mold removal services. Call (865) 986-3015 to schedule an assessment and explore the options available to restore microbial damage in your home.
Partial Removal of an Oak Ridge Home's Interior After Mold Damage
9/25/2023 (Permalink)
If you discover mold in your Oak Ridge home, SERVPRO is Here to Help® 24/7.
Removing Materials With Mold Damage Protects Homes
The musty odor that told you the upstairs bathroom in your Oak Ridge two-story home harbored mold won't last long after SERVPRO®'s technicians start working. We take mold damage removal seriously and use a highly effective approach that saves time and money.
During your home's mold remediation in Oak Ridge, SERVPRO's mold damage removal team identifies and eliminates hot spots of microbial activity. We also determine where cleaning should suffice. Our goal is to protect your property. One fact about mold and other similar microbes is that they exist everywhere. It is the overgrowth or colonization by microbes that is destructive.
Here is some information about the process of removing and replacing only those components dilapidated by microbes:
- Extraction of damaged structures
- Construction and use of barriers
- Installation of new structural elements
Anchoring itself into a porous material lets mold steadily cause disintegration on whatever substance it rests. We use protective gear during the removal of contaminated drywall or carpet sections. Our ventilation equipment prevents us from breathing in dust and spores while we pull out, cut, and bag said elements. Bagging what we cut away keeps anything from contaminating clean areas of your home as we pass through on our way to dispose of everything outside.
Building the necessary but temporary compartments around areas that require our attention takes little time but provides significant protection for your home and everything in it. With air movers and scrubbers, we further diminish the number of spores and mold particles within your home. Trapping these tiny things can prevent big problems later.
We can install new carpet after normalizing interior humidity levels and applying antimicrobial agents. Our team can also install wall materials. Changing the environment inside your home helps control the number of microbes and spores that can remain viable and form new colonies.
SERVPRO wants to protect your home and make it "Like it never even happened." Call SERVPRO of Loudon & Roane Counties at (865) 329-7804 for proficient remediation, mitigation, and restoration specialists.
If You Have A Mold Issue In Your Harriman Home Our Specialists Can Help!
2/20/2019 (Permalink)
SERVPRO of Loudon & Roane Counties are experts in cleaning mold from your home.
Mold Damage Restoration For Your Harriman Residence
The dreaded mold that every homeowner in Harriman never wants to see needs a few conditions to be able to grow. Understanding these can help you keep the mold from invading your family’s space. Mold needs things such as mold spores, a food source like drywall or wood, darkness, moisture, warmth, oxygen, and enough time (most molds can start growing in only 24-48 hours when the conditions are ideal).
What do you do when you find mold and mold damage in your Harriman home? You shouldn’t try to clean an infestation on your own, as typical household cleaners are not good enough to thoroughly clean it up. Instead, reach out to our professionally trained staff at SERVPRO. We have all the tools and training that is needed, plus the proper equipment, to rid your home of the nasty stuff and keep it from spreading further.
Because of the short time mold needs to make itself known, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at any time. Our SERVPRO techs waste no time arriving at your home to help. We first contain the affected area with plastic sheeting to prevent clean areas of your home from becoming infected while we clean. We can use different methods of cleaning depending on the surface that the mold is on, and some porous materials like drywall may need to be removed and replaced to dispose of the mold properly.
Humidity is a huge culprit of mold. If the weather has been especially humid for a few days or you live in an area where humidity is high naturally, mold growing in your home can be a common sight. Ensure your home is well ventilated in these cases.
Leaking pipes or roofs can also create mold. These types of leaks can be the worst, as they can go unnoticed for a time, allowing the mold time to start growing and then to spread. Make sure you are regularly inspecting your roof for damage to avoid those types of leaks.
Even cold surfaces can be a problem, as they can create condensation. The condensation collects on cold concrete floors and metal pipes. Anywhere condensation collects are primes spots for the growth of mold.
Another common cause of mold is water building up in the ground around the foundation of your home, which is why you need to ensure the ground is sloping away from your home rather than towards it. If needed, some landscaping can be done to prevent this, or you can even dig ditches or drains to channel the water away from your structure.
SERVPRO of Loudon & Roane Counties are experts in cleaning mold from your home in Tellico Village, Kingston, or Rockwood. Hopefully, it won’t be an issue for you, but if you find an infestation for any reason, get in touch with our crew right away by dialing (865) 986-3015.
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How To Spot Mold Growth In Your Harriman Home
8/15/2018 (Permalink)
The right way to correct mold growth in your home is to trust in the experience of a professional remediation team.
How To Spot Mold Growth
As much as the presence of a fungus growing in your Harriman home might leave you uneasy, the more unsettling truth is that many have these colonies sprouting and thriving throughout their residence without any knowledge. While common effects for these occurrences is a lingering and blatant odor that leads you to the source, in many cases, this is less overwhelming and easy to ignore.
Part of the problem with mold damages in your Harriman home is that many homeowners do not fully understand how mold spores seat and colonize. Moreover, you do not know where you should be looking. With a little bit of guidance to where you are most likely to find mold and some signs to look out for, you can better prevent the occurrence from happening before you have to call in the skilled remediation team we have at SERVPRO.
One of the first things that a homeowner needs to be on the lookout for is persistent dampness and moisture in areas of their home. This dampness is a feeding ground for spores that already exist naturally in the environment, allowing mold to get the nutrients it requires to spread and destroy organic matter they encounter. Our SERVPRO technicians can help you to isolate and repair the causes of moisture and dampness through areas of your home, even underneath it.
Spotting is the way that many colonies begin to spread throughout organic material they encounter in areas of growth in your home. These can easily get overlooked, especially in darker areas. Make sure to take the time to visually inspect low traffic areas of your home as well for any visible spots that appear on surfaces like drywall that has been affected by moisture.
The right way to correct mold growth in your home is to trust in the experience of a professional remediation team. You need a fast response time to help stop the growth and spread in its tracks and help better safeguard your house from a recurring event. Give our SERVPRO of Loudon & Roane Counties remediation technicians a call 24/7 at (865) 986-3015.
Click here for more about Harriman.
Mold Damage Experts in Oak Ridge Talk About Issues Resulting From Water Leaks
6/24/2018 (Permalink)
Pipe breaks or leaks can happen quietly and cause damage for a long time before they are discovered. Call SERVPRO right away to remediate.
Team SERVPRO Technicians Understand the Spread of Mold Through Your Home
If a pipe breaks inside your Oak Ridge mobile home while you are out of town, it is possible that you will come home to a big mess. When water sprays into your home for a long time, it can affect everything inside your house including both building materials and your possessions. As time goes on, excessive moisture can cause microbial growth to occur on organic substances inside the building. The longer the water damage problem goes unnoticed, the worse the contamination can get.
Once a fungus develops it forms structures called hyphae that spread into, across and up out of materials producing spores that act as seeds. When mitigating mold damage in Oak Ridge, preventing spores from spreading to unaffected areas is essential. As the seed-like, microscopic particles float around in the air, they find places to settle and produce more fungal contamination. Microbes can get into the building's ventilation system causing air quality issues to arise.
Since mold can cause health effects with some people, containing spores to the originally affected area is our SERVPRO technicians' primary goal. To start, anywhere inside the home that got contaminated by fungi gets sealed off from the rest of the house. We set up a containment chamber using thick plastic sheeting and metal poles. The chamber traps in any spores and dust created by the mitigation process. We then set up an air scrubber that gets attached to the side of the contained area to suck in the air cleaning it with a HEPA filtration system.
The HEPA filter traps the tiniest of particles floating around in the air so that only clean air is exhausted out by the air scrubber. Anti-microbial solutions also get used during the process to kill mold and the spores created by it. The major focus of the mitigation process is to remove the contamination from all affected materials. Some fungi can be sanded off surfaces while our SERVPRO restoration crew uses a HEPA vacuum to suck up the dust created by the sanding process. In other cases, the contamination is so severe that affected items must be thrown away. When removing objects from the contained region, they are always carried out of the containment chamber in sealed plastic bags so that contaminated dust cannot escape into the unaffected environment.
After all contamination is removed, our SERVPRO technicians dry out structural components so that the fungi do not reappear. If you ever have to deal with remediating fungal issues inside your mobile home, call SERVPRO of Loudon & Roane Counties at (865) 986-3015 any day of the week.
Click here for more information on the city of Oak Ridge.
Where Mold Damage is Most Likely to Be in a Harriman Home
4/26/2018 (Permalink)
Steam and humidity from a hot shower may produce enough moisture for mold spores to grow and spread.
Call on SERVPRO if You Discover Mold Damage in Your Home
Any part of your home in Harriman can get mold damage if the right conditions are present, but some areas may be more likely than others to develop these conditions. Most species grow best in warm, damp places where they can mature safely without much interference, making some places around the house prime targets for infestation. Whenever we respond to mold damage calls, we take care to investigate these and other areas for any signs of additional growth, as an unknown, lurking colony could cause more problems later.
Bathrooms
With so much moisture in one area, it is no surprise that bathrooms in Harriman develop mold damage more readily than do other rooms in a home. With many water fixtures that can leak, break or overflow, the area could be doused in enough water to develop a significant fungal problem multiple times in one week. Even the steam and humidity from a hot shower may be enough to sustain some species. Mold prefers to grow in tile grout, wood or paneled surfaces, and beneath cabinets in home styles typical of the Harriman area.
Basements
Basements may be perfect places for spores to grow because of their climate regulation and elevated moisture levels. Lower elevations in the home support both optimal climates and water content, as any leaks or drips can easily make their way down. Basements are also dark more often than other parts of the home, which creates favorable conditions for a wider variety of mold species.
Outdoor Areas
While areas outside your home may not be climate controlled and undisturbed like the indoors, they also are much more exposed to the elements and rainfall than anywhere inside. Many types of mold prefer this environment, where safety may not be assured but a food source is, and you could deal with patches of growth on the exterior of your home or in other outdoor areas, such as patios, walkways, and tool sheds. Seasonal conditions are much more important for these cases, and we do not normally see many outdoor infestations in the colder parts of the year.
SERVPRO of Loudon & Roane Counties provides expert mold damage remediation and restoration services for problems of any shape, size, and location. Call us at (865) 986-3015 to learn how we can help.
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