Mold is everywhere, and can be a problem in many residential and commercial buildings. Such mold can be detrimental to your health and result in damage to both your body and your property. While mold problems in the self-storage industry has yet to become a significant problem, this post will discuss the potential dangers of mold in self-storage buildings. If you are currently dealing with mold problems, you should contract a specialized contractor that can help you with mold remediation.
Can Mold Potentially be a Problem in Self-Storage Buildings?
In order for mold to grow and multiply, it requires nutrients like wood, paper, leaves or dirt, and an environment suitable for it to grow. When a building or a building’s materials collect excessive moisture or is very high in humidity, growth of mold is likely to happen within 1 or 2 days. Mold that occurs indoors comes from outside, such as spores that enter buildings through windows, doorways and HVAC systems. When mold spores end up on an area indoors that is damp, they will begin to grow, multiply and eventually destroy whatever they landed on.
Sources of indoor moisture that may result in mold problems include:
- Roofs and windows that leak
- Humidifiers
- Flooding
- Inefficient HVAC systems
- Damp basements
- House plants that require a lot of watering
- Mud dams or ice dams
- Plumbing leaks that occur constantly
- Backed up sewers
Can Indoor Mold Make Me Sick?
Mold spores usually causes problems only when they are inhaled in large amounts. People may also come into contact with mold through eating and skin contact. For some, a small amount of mold spores is enough to trigger health problems. People that have allergies also tend to be more sensitive to mold exposure. If you can smell or see the mold, it is important to remove the mold and maintain a less moist environment to reduce mold exposure.
How to Tell if Mold Contamination Exists on My Self Storage Building?
If mold is visible to you or you can smell a musty odor, you may have a mold problem. You can check for the presence of water damage as usually, mold growth can be found underneath places that are damaged by water or behind walls. Things to look out for include bubbling of paint, discoloration and leaching from plaster.
Air sampling is not recommended to be the first step to determine whether you have a mold problem. If you can see mold, then sampling would be completely unnecessary. Sampling is useful once mold is identified in order to find the site of contamination, finding out species of mold and to differentiate mold from soot and dirt.
The Bottom Line
Mold problems may not only trigger existing health problems and allergies of people, but it may also lead to property damage which will require money to fix. If you think that you have a mold problem, it is important to clean up the mold fast and eliminate excess moisture, especially in self storage buildings which may house many other items. If you are interested in finding an expert to help with your mold problems, feel free to contact Iris Environmental Laboratories today.