Mold in your Home from the Crawl Space

Mold knows why it was put here. If it's organic, dead and wet, mold knows how to eat it.  Organic means it is a material that was once living, such as wood.  Mold sends out its spores everywhere, which can lay dormant for many years.  So when something organic, dead and wet mold grows on it eating it away.  Now...when we say mold we ar talking about any mold, or fungi, of which there are thousands of varieties.   Since mold spores are literally everywhere, and our building materials are organic, and the contents of our homes are primarily organic, mold has plenty of opportunity for a food source.  Most of this we can not control, however, we can control the moisture and humidity in our homes.

Mold is crafty, and it needs about 70% relative humidity to grow, however this is a loose number.  Some molds can grow in less, and some need more.  In many cases, like in a crawl space, the relative humidity of th surrounding air and the relative humidity of the surfaces are two different things because of temperature differences between the air and the surfaces.

Mold seems to really like processed organic fibers.  Things like paper and cardboard.  Let me rephrase for the home, things like stored paper products like old tests, kids projects, school art work, books, tax returns, and of course all other important papers.  In addition, cardboard boxes for moving and storage of all of the above.  After mold gets ahold of its favorites (paper and cardboard) it goes after fiberboard and chipboard and then into plywood and finally for dessert the framing lumber.  Here's a thought...Drywall has paper on it, so...mold will chase down drywall pretty hard.

Mold releases airborne spores, or seeds, which are so light they float on the slightest air currents, both outside and inside, off to find more suitable places to grow and to feed.  Most, but not all, people are not allergic to mold spores.  The higher the concentration of mold spores, the greater the percentage of people who will be bothered by them.  Stands to reason.

There is plenty of information on mold and its effects on your families health, so we won't discuss it here, but a couple of things are for sure; one is, vented dirt crawl spaces are a breeding mold and mold spores, two, vented dirt crawl spaces can be encapsulated significantly reducing its contribution to mold, and three we can control our moisture and relative humidity in our homes significantly control the environment and holding mold in check.