Some are year ’round and others are purely for vacations. They are wood and vinyl, comfy and beachy. They are made to withstand our excessive winds. They shade us from the summer blaze, and keep us toasty during winter’s snowstorms. But the houses on Long Beach Island were incubators for mold spores long before Superstorm Sandy rammed into our coast.
Molds, fungal growths that require moisture to thrive, are a common element of household dust. But when they multiply, they tend to kick off allergies. But the effects can be much greater than sneezing and watery eyes. At high levels, they can cause respiratory and even digestive tract infections. The elderly and young children are especially susceptible in homes with mold.
Jeremy Sparks of the Sparks Consulting Group in Princeton specializes in air quality consulting. However, since the devastation of the superstorm, he has turned his business from consulting to remediation: the service of professional remedies for mold.
“I’ve been all around the Island and a lot of the Beach Haven West, and it’s pretty serious,” he said on Sunday during an inspection of a residence in Ship Bottom.
With an unprecedented storm surge of 9 feet, areas of the Island and the mainland that have never seen flooding were several feet underwater, and folks who have never had mold issues could potentially face a new danger now that the storm is gone.
In the case of Long Beach Island, which was closed to residents for weeks after the storm because of natural gas dangers, most of the flooded houses couldn’t be addressed for two weeks. The festering homes and businesses left elected officials with some tough choices.
“The other matters of life and safety took precedence over mold,” said Dan Krupinski of the Long Beach Island Health Department, “Unfortunately, that’s just how it worked out.”
In homes with little airflow, the mold growth can change the scope of the cleanup every 24 hours.
“Our homes are essentially built out of paper and designed to trap air,” said Sparks, “Certain common, but toxic, secondary-growth molds, such as Chaetomium and Stachybotrys, can continue to grow in a person’s lungs, spine and even brain, making rapid source removal an important step before inhabiting a space with mold growth in what we call the ‘secondary-growth colonizing’ stage.”
He explained that fiberglass insulation, drywall and carpeting are prime feeding grounds for molds to grow. And then there is more-aggressive mold that feeds on the first mold. In an an area as damp as a barrier island, homes should be built differently than in drier areas.
“Wall-to-wall carpet is essentially a sponge,” he added.
Most people are somewhat aware that mold growth is a problem. But there is also misinformation, and many are not aware of long-term effects. Most of the lists of needs posted by shelters and volunteer groups include bleach. The thought is that water with bleach or painting over will kill mold. But that doesn’t solve the problem
Sparks doesn’t believe in killing mold either way. If anything, the acid of vinegar kills bacteria, but overall it’s bigger than that.
“You have to get rid of the condition that is causing the mold to grow. When you kill something, it releases gas. In this case, volatile organic compounds. Even dead mold is just asking for more problems. I don’t like using chemicals that emit more VOCs.”
Sparks’ background is in building science. Normally his business is recommending changes to homes of people with chronic respiratory illnesses. But Sandy has been a whole new challenge for him, and he wants to get as much information out as possible to coastal areas, free of charge.
Living through the storm, being displaced for weeks and returning to water-damaged homes is daunting enough. For those who have not yet opened summer houses, mold could be thriving.
“That’s more of an issue for the homeowner. It’s going to be a greater scope of work,” Krupinski said. “If it’s sealed up, it won’t be a public hazard. It might be out of the realm of the homeowner doing repairs themselves if it was really inundated. The longer you wait, the greater the scope of the work.”
For homeowners dealing with mold, Sparks suggests, “Opening trapped wall and floor cavities in areas where sustained and high levels of moisture were introduced while employing industrial dehumidification is very important and will freeze the moisture damage process, buying yourself more time. Isolating seemingly unaffected areas or house levels from the areas most affected by a water event with heavy plastic sheeting will reduce the spread of contaminating mold spores and greatly reduce the cost of a proper cleanup or remediation.”
No comments:
Post a Comment