Some things in your home are easy to clean up and keep clean. But some things are sneaky and stubborn, hard to find in order to clean up, and quick to come back despite your best efforts! One of the worst offenders is mold. How is it that mold is so good at surviving? How does it spread from one place to another? And how can you stop it once and for all? We’ve got the answers.
How Mold Survives
The main thing that mold requires for survival is moisture. It is possible to reduce the moisture in your home, and thus the potential areas for mold growth, with a dehumidifier. While portable units are an option, a whole home dehumidifier which connects to your HVAC system will make more of a difference.
However, the reality is that you need water in your home, and there will always be at least a little bit of moisture, even once you’ve controlled the humidity. And it doesn’t take a whole lot of moisture to keep mold alive, especially in places that stay dark, like in cupboards and in your ductwork.
How Mold Spreads
Once you’ve got any mold in your home at all, it can easily transfer itself from one area to another, even in places that are surprisingly far apart. How can it do that? Through the air. Mold reproduces by releasing spores. Unlike plant seeds, these are extremely tiny particles, nearly microscopic. They can effortlessly float through the air and land in new places and, if those places are damp, spawn new mold colonies.
How to Stop Mold
To clean up existing mold can be an exhausting and expensive endeavor. If a home is severely contaminated, mold remediation can cost tens of thousands of dollars. And just scrubbing a small area of mold in one part of your home, like the bathroom, may require the use of some strong chemicals. It’s best to make sure it doesn’t get to that point! As always, prevention is much easier than the cure.
Before you end up with a horrific problem on your hands, snatch those mold spores out of the air and stop them from growing new colonies! If mold can’t reproduce, it won’t take long for it to die out completely. And the way to eliminate those spores is an air purifier.
UV Air Purifiers
Like the dehumidifier mentioned earlier, this type of air purifier is installed as an addition to your HVAC system, and it purifies all the air that passes through your ducts and out your vents. It consists of a filter, which catches larger particles, and an ultraviolet light, which sanitizes the air of any remaining particles.
Ultraviolet light at this particular frequency is deadly to single-celled microbes and bacteria. It unravels the chemical bonds that hold their proteins together, destroying their structural integrity. They can no longer grow, reproduce, or cause illness. A member of our team would be delighted to help you find the options for an air purifier in Virginia, MN that would work best for your home.
Reach out to Mesaba Heating & Air Conditioning today. Service to you is success to us!