LESLIE: Shironnie (sp) in Colorado is on the line and has a question about mold. What can we do for you today?
SHIRONNIE (sp): The pipes have broken inside the walls and we fixed the pipes and everything. Now we’ve got this problem with mildew and the mold, so we have – we want to know what’s the best way to treat it.
TOM: Yeah. You know, first of all, when that happened, did you file a claim with your homeowners insurance company?
SHIRONNIE (sp): No, we just got the house. We got it as is, so we’re fixing it before we move in.
TOM: Oh, oh. OK. Got it, got it, got it. OK. Well, is it a lot of mold or is it a little bit of mold?
SHIRONNIE (sp): A lot. We’re ripping out drywall and as we rip it out, we’re finding more.
TOM: Oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah, this is generally not a do-it-yourself project because when you have a lot of mold, you can contaminate parts of the house with this. I really think this is the kind of thing that you want to stop and get some professional help with, Shironnie (sp). Because if you release all those mold spores into the air, you potentially could be causing a bigger problem.
Generally, when you have that much mold – you say a lot of mold – you have to be careful about how you take that apart. What you generally do is you depressurize the house, you put fans in the house so that it pulls the air out as you’re breaking out that – the drywall and so on and flushes all of those mold spores to the outside. And then all of the framing gets sprayed down so that you kill anything that’s left behind. You get it good and dry and then you reinsulate and re-drywall.
But it’s a pretty big job and when you have a lot of mold like that, you can be exposing yourself to that mold and that could make you sick. So I would say to proceed very cautiously when you’re trying to rebuild a house that’s got heavy mold damage. It’s not an easy problem to resolve.
SHIRONNIE (sp): Oh, OK.
TOM: So good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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