3 Reasons Black Mold Keeps Invading Your Home

8/25/2022 (Permalink)

Mold remediation in Bayshore, FL.

If you found black mold growing in your home in Bayshore, FL, and thought you had it taken care of with proper mold cleanup, you may be upset to find the fungus invading your home again. You can never remove all the mold from your home, but there are several reasons that infestations might keep returning after cleanup.

You Don't Prevent the Spread

Microscopic mold spores can get into the air during the cleanup process and spread to nearby areas, where they can settle and start to multiply again. There are steps that should be taken to help stop mold from spreading during the cleaning process:

• Installing physical barriers
• Using air filtration systems
• Turning off fans, air conditioners, and heating units

You Leave Mold on Porous Surfaces

With insufficient cleaning, black mold may be left on porous surfaces where it will start to grow again. Materials such as drywall and carpeting should be removed and disposed of properly. Decorative items such as furniture or curtains might also need to be thrown out or thoroughly cleaned. Professional mold remediation using antifungal and antimicrobial treatments should be applied to any infested areas that can’t be completely removed from the home.

You Don't Stop the Source of Moisture

It is important to find and remove or repair the source of moisture creating a damp environment that encourages mold growth. Mold spores naturally exist in the air, and when they are exposed to moisture, they can quickly multiply. Excess moisture can be coming from a water leak or simply from high indoor humidity levels. A mold infestation is likely to keep returning if steps are not taken to locate and cut off the moisture source.

It is always important to have any visible black mold in your home properly cleaned, but it is just as important that these mold remediation procedures are also used to stop the mold from returning and spreading.

Why a DIY Mold Testing Kit Can't Replace a Professional Inspection

7/25/2022 (Permalink)

Here’s Why

There’s a lot of debate as to the accuracy of home mold testing kits, but even the most accurate DIY kit can’t match the benefits of a professional mold investigation. 

1. A Professional Will Conduct More Thorough Testing

The testing process for a typical mold kit consists of placing a Petri dish in a single location in your home and waiting for mold to accumulate. An environmental hygienist, on the other hand, will take samples from surfaces and from the air in multiple locations throughout your home. He or she will also collect control samples to establish the normal mold levels for a home in Fort Myers Shores, FL, which are likely different than what's "normal" for a home in another part of the country. The lab results from a DIY mold kit will tell you how many mold spores were found. However, these numbers are meaningless unless you understand what constitutes a “normal” count.

2. A Professional Will Perform a Complete Home Inspection

A mold expert will inspect your home to discover any visible signs of mold and to identify possible sources of excess moisture, like leaks, condensation, or humidity. Mold professionals have extensive knowledge of home plumbing and ventilation systems and can locate sources that most people would miss.

3. A Professional Will Create an Action Plan

An environmental hygienist will consider your mold testing results, together with his or her findings from the visual inspection, to determine what needs to happen next. If you’re working with a full-service mold remediation company, they will create and carry out a plan to eliminate the moisture source and remove the existing mold, if necessary. A mold expert can also advise you about how to avoid future mold outbreaks.

DIY mold testing kits may seem like an inexpensive alternative to professional mold inspections, but these kits offer only a fraction of the benefits when compared to the real deal.

How SERVPRO Can Make Your Business's Mold Remediation Process More Efficient

5/1/2022 (Permalink)

How SERVPRO Can Improve Your Company's Mold Remediation Process

Black mold isn't a pleasant thing to discover in your Fort Myers, FL, business building. Fortunately, its presence doesn't need to be permanent. One of the most important steps to take going forward is calling a mold remediation company. This will allow you to have your building properly handled by experts. A particularly effective company in this regard is SERVPRO. If you want to know why, here's how SERVPRO can make your business's mold remediation process more efficient.

1. Quick Arrival

When it comes to remediating mold, swift work is vital. After all, you may be unable to use your building until it's done. SERVPRO is dedicated to responding quickly to reports of black mold, so you can start to get back to work soon enough. The company also asks a series of questions before sending people over, which ensures that the trip won't be delayed by a lack of necessary materials.

2. Various Containment Techniques

Containing fungus is an essential part of the remediation process. It ensures that the mold can't spread any further. These are a few techniques the experts use, particularly for more advanced issues:

• Turning off HVAC systems and fans
• Creating negative air pressure
• Creating negative air chambers

Containing the mold quickly can greatly minimize the damage, so this is especially helpful.

3. Trained Specialists

Since SERVPRO specializes in mold and water restoration, you'll have help from experts in these fields. These professionals conduct assessments soon after arrival to determine what needs to be done. For instance, the workers may find that the mold is secondary damage from a more pressing problem.

4. Advanced Filtration Equipment

This may sound gross, but mold can live as microscopic spores in the air, especially in an area with high humidity. In order to get rid of it, SERVPRO professionals use a specialized method of filtration that involves HEPA vacuums and "air scrubbers". Doing so gets rid of the spores and stops the entities from spreading further.

If you discover black mold in your building, don't panic. SERVPRO experts can complete the remediation process with efficiency while you run your company.

Why It’s Imperative To Clean the Breakroom Fridge on a Weekly Basis

4/6/2022 (Permalink)

Dehumidifiers like this one help stabilize the environment and minimize mold growth.

Take a look in your breakroom fridge and make note of what you see. Do you see nice, clean and organized shelves of food, or do you see bags of forgotten food, rotten fruit, spills and stains, and maybe even a growing patch of fridge mold? Chances are, it’s the latter. Office refrigerators hardly (if ever) get cleaned, which may be why so many come with that telltale mold smell. NBC News ran a report about the dangers of an unsanitary fridge.

That said, while disinfecting the fridge should be a weekly chore, there are better and worse ways of going about the process. If you want to clean up your breakroom fridge, here are a few tips from your North Fort Myers, FL mold remediation team:

• Be mindful of expiration dates, and if something looks funky, toss it.
• However, always ask before discarding anything, otherwise you risk having a lawsuit brought against you for throwing away someone's personal property.
• Wipe up spills to prevent fridge mold, and always make sure the caps are securely fastened to their bottles to help prevent future spills.
• Make cleaning out the office refrigerator and disinfecting it a weekly chore.

To make the last one fair for everyone, devise a cleaning schedule. This way the same person isn’t responsible for cleaning up after everyone else each week. Also, ask each co-worker to go through the fridge every Friday and throw out any leftover items of theirs that have gone bad. If some items are still good, such as bottles of mustard or jars of jelly, ask them to wipe down the containers with a warm cloth and place them back in a designated spot in the fridge.

Office refrigerators can be pretty gross, but with five minutes of everyone’s time at the end of each week, your breakroom fridge can be a clean and healthy place to stow your food. Best of all, it can be free of that dreaded fridge mold.

Faster to Any Size Disaster

2/25/2022 (Permalink)

SERVPRO of North Fort Myers is Faster To Any Size Disaster.

Faster to Any Size Disaster

When you are processing an insurance claim for water damage in Solana, FL, you know that the response needs to be immediate. You’ve seen what happens to building materials and personal belongings in that first 24 hours and you know how fast mold sets in. With water, the damage becomes substantially worse in a matter of hours and secondary damage, like mold growth, can make claim costs climb exponentially. You need a preferred vendor that can get there, wherever there is, faster than any other contractor. That’s why many insurance companies rely on SERVPRO: because they are Faster to Any Size Disaster.

National, but Local

So, what do other insurance companies know that you don’t? Why are they using SERVPRO and what makes them Faster to Any Size Disaster? The simple answer is that it’s a national company, with locally-owned franchises. What does this mean to you?

• Service is available 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

• A national call center means your customer calls are returned within an hour.

• There are more than 1,700 franchises so there is a location ready to respond wherever your customer lives.

• Training is IICRC approved, consistent and provided from the national company so you can rely on knowledgeable remediation and restoration professionals and that translates into fast work because the crew knows exactly what to do.

• A national company provides consistent standards and procedures, so work is done right the first time.

• State of the art, commercial-grade equipment cleans, dries and monitors for quick and thorough cleanup.

With all the benefits of a national disaster restoration company and all the accessibility of locally-owned franchises, Faster to Any Size Disaster means significant cost reduction through the prevention of subsequent damage caused by delays and exposure. This provides more opportunities for restoration, which is much less costly than replacement. You can have the best of both worlds with SERVPRO.