Friday, September 28, 2007

Mold in the Winter

If you live in an area that gets a lot of snow cover during the winter, but it thaws out during the spring, you might be familiar with this problem. Sometimes there can be a quite unwelcome guest underneath all that beautiful snow and you are not likely to find out that it is there until after the snow has already thawed and it has already done the damage it came to do.

If a blanket of snow fails to melt for quite a while after it has fallen, then you might have to deal with mold after it finally does begin to thaw out. When a thick and wet blanket of snow settles on ground that is not frozen, snow mold becomes quite a problem. It begins to decompose the grass under the snow and after the snow begins to melt, it is usually too late to do anything about it.

The main symptom of snow mold is typically a large number of circular patches of deceased grass that can be between 3 to 12 inches in diameter. In some of the most extreme cases, these patches might not look like circles at all because most of the grass on your lawn has died. When pink snow mold has matured, it takes on a pale pink to salmon-like color. This is caused by the mold Microdochium nivale. This is the most serious kind of snow mold because it can completely kill the roots of the grass it affects if it is not treated as soon as possible.

Gray snow mold is caused by different species in the genus Typhula and can be colored from gray to white. These molds usually do not cause damage to any other part of the plant than just the blades. The root usually remains unaffected.

Snow molds tend to grow in temperatures just above freezing and in semi-wet conditions. While it is most commonly associated with snow cover, it can also occur when fall leaves cover a certain spot on the lawn for a long period of time. Kentucky bluegrass-type grasses are less likely to suffer as much damage as others.

If you want to prevent snow mold from growing on your lawn, do not fertilize it less than six weeks before the cold weather begins to roll in and the grass dies. Also, as long as your grass is still growing, you should continue to mow it.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
water damage restoration contractors and
Mold Remediation companies across the united states.

Mold in Human History

Mold manifests itself in our world no matter where we happen to be and while we will never really be able to get rid of mold, we can continue to educate ourselves about it and understand what it does.

The Bible has the oldest mention of mold and mildew as problem in the household and recommends that any home that is contaminated with it have the materials inside the home that are infected completely removed and taken far away from where people live. Some insurance claims adjusters dismiss mold as a serious health risk, but many of those clam up when they are read that particular scripture out of the most sold book in the world.

What exactly does the Bible say about mold and where? The text mentions mold in the Old Testament in the book of Leviticus in chapter 14:39-47. Priests were told to go into the home and remove the infected stones and other items that were infected with mold. These were to be taken far away from town and dumped in what was called an “unclean” place. The house was watched for seven days and if the mold came back, then the entire structure was to be torn down and rebuilt with different materials. All of the old material was to be removed and taken to the same unclean place the first set of materials was taken to. Any clothing that was contaminated had to be taken to the priest, examined, and then thrown away.

Some scientists today say that the plague of Egypt responsible for killing the first born child of every Egyptian family was due to mold contaminating the grains that were stored underground because of the plague that had come before it, the locusts. Stachybotrys atra in particular could have contaminated this food and if a child consumed enough of it, death was a very real possibility. In those times, the eldest Egyptian child was given a second portion of his food and this would have been enough to cause the child to fall seriously ill and probably die. The Hebrew children of those days did not get such a serving and ate things like unleavened bread and lamb, which were not subject to contamination.

Any insurance adjuster that says mold is not a serious health problem for human beings should be taking a few notes from the Bible, especially if he counts himself a Christian. Even if he doesn’t, the text is still an ancient one and contains the first known mention of mold and mildew contaminating a home and the procedures used to rid the home of the infection.


Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
water damage restoration companies and
Dallas Residential Water Damage Restoration Contractors.

What To Do When Your Fridge Has Been Invaded By Mold

Unfortunately, finding mold growing in our refrigerator is something that everyone has to deal with at some point or another, whether you are single, married, or especially if you have children. People who tend to lead fully scheduled lives from day to day typically do not have time to keep a check on the items in their refrigerator to make sure mold does not start to grow, but time should be made at the very least twice a year to clean out the refrigerator of old inventory. Those with more time to clean out their refrigerators should do so more often.

Take an inventory of what is in your refrigerator and what the date is. Anything that is sorely outdated, showing signs of mold contamination, or smelling foul should be thrown away. These items will not take long to contaminate the food that is next to it, such as potatoes from the garden that are put in the same container. One bad potato will spoil the rest fairly quickly if it is not removed and the potatoes touching it washed immediately afterward.

Fruits and vegetables that are brought home from the grocery store should be removed from their plastic sacks that we use at the store to collect them with. These bags will trap moisture inside and cause the fruit to begin to break down, inviting mold to start growing.

Clean out your refrigerator as often as possible, especially if you tend to have a lot of spills in it. If you thaw meat out in the refrigerator, you need to make sure it is thawed out in a pan of some kind to prevent the blood or other juices from getting all over your shelves. Raw poultry is notorious for causing salmonella poisoning, so it is important that you get anything the poultry touched while it was thawing in the refrigerator cleaned after you take it out.

Wash the insides of the refrigerator with antibacterial cleaners and bleach, if you must. Bleach should not be mixed with other household chemicals, however, especially those that contain ammonia. This can cause hazardous fumes to build up in your kitchen and can do you serious damage if you breathe enough in.

While you have everything out of the fridge, take the time to go through the items in it again and toss out anything questionable. Check any home-canned goods that you might have and make sure the seals are not broken on them. Throw out anything the seal is broken on, unless you broke the seal yourself not long ago.


Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
South Carolina flood water damage restoration and other states such as
Connecticut water damage restoration companies across the united states.

Know What To Throw Away When You Find Mold On Your Food

Everyone has had that battle with themselves while looking around in the refrigerator for something to eat: it has mold on it… do you eat it? Well, depending on just what kind of food “it” is, it might be salvageable and it might not be.

No matter what we put in the refrigerator, if it gets left in there long enough, mold will eventually start to grow on it. Jams, jellies, preserves, leftovers, it does not typically matter what it is. Most of us like good food and unfortunately, mold usually has the same tastes that we do and invades our refrigerators on a daily basis, ruining the meal of leftovers we thought we were going to have after work.

Improperly home canned foods are at risk for mold growth. Fruits and vegetables must always be washed carefully and inspected for quality before canning and not only that, but the jars and other equipment that is used must also be sterilized, usually by boiling them in water.

So, what do you do what that item in the fridge that has mold on it? There are not a whole lot of things that can be saved once it is contaminated with mold. But, dense items like hard salami or dry-cured country hams can be saved because these items have a pretty stable shelf life and it is common for them to have surface mold. Simply scrub it off.

Anything with a high moisture content or a soft texture, however, needs to be thrown away once mold starts to grow on it. This can include leftover casseroles, lunch meat, hot dogs, and bacon in the meat category and soft cheeses, yogurt, sour cream, and even cheeses made with mold should be thrown away. It may sound odd to throw away a block of cheese contaminated with mold if the cheese was made with mold to begin with, but it is likely that the new mold growing on your cheese was not part of the manufacturing process and this can be dangerous.

Baked goods like bread should also be thrown away because they are porous and may be contaminated below the surface.

Jams, jellies, preserves, and marmalades found to be contaminated with mold needs to be thrown away because they have a high moisture content and are soft enough for the mold to infect the entire jar.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Connecticut Mold Remediation services and other states such as
north carolina mold remediation companies across the united states.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Salvaging a Watery Electronic Device

Whether you own a cell phone, CD player, laptop, or any other small electronic device, you probably know that letting such a device come into contact with a liquid surely means the sudden death of it. This is somewhat of a misunderstanding, simply because of the fact that it is not the water alone that makes water and electrical devices coming into contact with each other a dangerous thing for your item.

What makes water a bad thing to let get onto or into your electronic devices is whether or not electricity is running through it at the time of contact. It is the electricity that does the real damage and not the liquid itself. If you were to put a CD player or a cell phone that had no electrical current running through it into a puddle of normal water (not containing any dirt particles or sand or chemicals), then there would probably be next to no damage done to it, since most circuit boards are made of plastic and do not absorb water very well. Unfortunately, putting something like that into chemically treated or dirty water could cause more problems than just the water contact.

If you do happen to drop your cell phone or CD player into a bath tub or sink full of water, get it out of the water in less than 20 seconds in order to minimize the damage. Getting it out in under 20 seconds is important because it takes about that long for the water to get inside the item and to the item’s circuit board, especially if it as airtight as most cell phones are these days. Cell phones are not completely water tight, which is the reason for the time limit. Even if the phone is on, it can be saved if you get it out in time. Remove the battery as quickly as possible and lay it on the side with openings for the water to drain out, such as on the keypad if it was a cell phone.

Put the device into a bowl of uncooked rice at least overnight and this should absorb the majority of the water from both the inside and outside of it. Do not replace the battery or try to power on the device until you are certain that it is completely dry inside. Trying to turn it on could be exactly what does the damage that you are trying to avoid.


Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
water damage restoration contractors and
Mold Remediation companies across the united states.

Mold in My Rice, Please

A favorite food in Asia for the past thousand years is called red yeast rice and it considered a traditional part of the dish most of us are familiar with, at least by name, called Peking duck. The system of Traditional Chinese Medicine has put the dish to use by claiming that it assists the body in keeping a healthy circulatory system and promotes a healthy heart. Its use has been documented back as long ago as the Tang imperial dynasty in China in the approximate year of 800 A.D. There could possibly be a fair reason for the claim that it helps keep a good circulatory system, since current research has proven that it is pretty good at lowering your cholesterol. But, what is this “red yeast rice”, exactly?

Well, red yeast rice is produced by fermenting a mold called “monascus purpureus” that has been put on top of rice. The natural ingredient mevinolin is supposedly what gives the dish its cholesterol lowering characteristic, since this ingredient is similar to that which doctors typically give a person to help lower high cholesterol, such as the drugs Zocor and Lipitor. Even though we all need a certain amount of cholesterol in order to survive and be healthy, most of the time our own bodies produce enough of it to maintain survival. We only actually need to obtain about twenty percent of our cholesterol from the food that we take in every day. Red yeast rice (or mevinolin, whichever you want to say) blocks the enzyme in the liver that causes it to produce cholesterol.

Even though this medicine food has been used in China for at least a millennia in the treatment of high cholesterol and maintaining a healthy circulatory system, it has only begun to see some use in the United States and other western countries. Mevinolin is actually sold as a dietary supplement in some places and is available over the counter without a prescription.

If you do happen to eat red yeast rice, it is not a good idea to eat it or take the mevinolin supplements if your doctor has already put you on Zocor or Lipitor.

Monascus purpureus is a red-purplish mold that is used primarily in Asian foods to provide color and was used for this long before food dyes were invented. In addition to providing a healthy amount of color to a dish, it can also give the food a good flavor, too.


Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
water damage restoration companies and
Dallas Residential Water Damage Restoration Contractors.

Mold And Water In Your Two Most Important Rooms

A good meal and a good bath is something that most Americans enjoy thoroughly, but how can you enjoy either one when you’re in a room full of ugly water damage stainss on the walls, floors, and ceilings? Many of these rooms often have the brown stains on the ceiling that are typical of water damage and while most people just paint over them, often the stains just keep coming back because the underlying problem has not been fixed yet.

It is probably due to a leaky roof, but what about the steam that comes off of your bath water or off of the stove when you cook dinner? These every day tasks can be just as much of a cause of water damage as a leaking roof can be, if not more so because they happen every day. At least, a bath a day comes recommended, anyway. Installing a steam vent in your bathroom for under $100 and a day’s work could possibly be one of the best investments that you can make to help safeguard the appearance and structural integrity of your kitchen and bathroom.

Make sure that you do not allow your bath tub or your kitchen sink to overflow. Sometimes we turn on the bath water and get stuck talking to a relative or a co-worker on the phone, all the while unaware that the water you wanted in your tub is pouring all over your floor. The same thing can happen when you are cooking in the kitchen or washing dishes. This can land quite a lot of water in your floor before you realize it and can do quite a bit of damage to your floor if you let it happen often.

An overflowing toilet is also a hazard, not only because of the water damage that can occur, but also due to the possible sewage content of the water when you go to flush it. If not cleaned up properly, mold can start to grow around the base of the toilet, especially if you have carpet in your bathroom. Carpet in the bathroom is a no-no.

Also avoid throwing wet dirty clothes into your bathroom floor or closet, especially if you happen to have a carpeted bathroom. You will probably forget that these wet clothes are there and throw dry ones on top of it.

This results in water damage and mold growth more often than not when the closet is not cleaned out. The best thing to do is to wash wet clothes and towels as soon as possible so they are not forgotten about or at the very least stored separately from dry dirty clothes.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
South Carolina flood water damage restoration and other states such as
Connecticut water damage restoration companies across the united states.

What You Need When Removing Mold

A lot of people dream of purchasing a home that is a “fixer-upper”, but many are wary about purchasing homes that are contaminated with mold in different areas. Depending on how old the home is, what condition it is in structurally, and where it is located, it may be feasible to attempt to remediate the home yourself on top of the normal remodeling that you are going to have to do. When you have to remodel a home due to cosmetic issues, a lot of the time you have to remove building materials, anyway, so why not go the extra mile and remove the mold from the home?

Professional remediation can be expensive, but if you know what you are doing and know what equipment you will need to take up the job and complete it successfully, you could have a gem of a house in not a large amount of time.

If you do choose to remediate the home yourself instead of hiring a professional, you might want to know what you will need to do it. Hiring someone to at least assess the remediation needs of the home is advised. Some heavy duty chemicals that will kill the mold will be necessary if it is growing on non-porous surfaces like tile. Almost anything else that is contaminated by mold, such as drywall, will have to be removed and replaced. Remove any and everything from the home with mold on it; do not let it come into contact with new building materials that you have purchased.

Heavy duty trash bags and a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter system on it are recommended. The vacuum will remove any mold spores from the floor after the remediation job is done with.

Respirators are a must when taking on a mold remediation job. Even if the infection is not that severe, breathing mold spores is still a hazard to your health and many problems can arise. You may be allergic and not even know it. Purchase a good quality respirator if you plan on taking out any drywall or old wood. Protective clothing so the spores do not get on your skin is also a good idea. Purchase a roll of duct tape to seal the gaps between your protective suit and your shoes. Disposable protective clothing for mold remediation is available and it not very expensive. The most expensive piece of equipment you will need is the respirator and there is no reason to skimp on that part.


Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
north carolina flood water damage restoration and other states such as
New Jersey mold remediation companies across the united states.

What You Can Do to Prevent Water Damage

You might not be able to stop a hurricane or a flood from causing water damage to your home, but what you can stop are a lot of things in your home that can cause the same kind of damage, just on a smaller scale. They are quite simple and although you might forget to do them from time to time, as long as you make sure to check at least every once in a while, you (and your wallet) will be better protected against the surprise expense of water damage remediation.

One of the most frequent offenders of water damage tends to be the water heater itself. This should be located somewhere on the lowest floor of your home and in a drain pan connected to a pipe or hose that drains back into the sewer. This will make sure that even if your water heater does burst or begins to leak slowly, the water will not go into the floor, but down the drain. Most water heaters should be located in the basement and a leaky water heater down there is not going to be as much of a problem as one on the second or even third level of a home.

Make sure you have your rain gutters cleaned out at the end of autumn when the leaves have stopped falling. Your rain gutters are what keep water from simply sliding off your roof and settling around the foundation of your home. Water that collects around your home’s foundation can cause it to sink into the ground and even though this is a slow process, it can do a significant amount of damage to your home’s value. The downspouts should also be clear of any debris and water channeled away from the foundation. Soil around the base of your home should also be at such an angle that water naturally flows away from it.

Keep an eye on the pipes or hoses that go to your dishwasher and your clothes washer in the laundry room. Hoses can develop weak spots over time and develop leaks that can leave you in a huge mess, especially if you happen to be away from home at the grocery store or a friend’s when the leak begins.

Water damage can also be prevented by not forgetting that you have bath water running or water running in the kitchen sink. Overflowing sinks and tubs account for a lot of damage like this and can coat your floor with more water than you think in a very short period of time.



Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Connecticut Mold Remediation services and other states such as
north carolina mold remediation companies across the united states.