Protect Your Port Charlotte Business with these Mold Damage Tips!

8/10/2022 (Permalink)

Call on SERVPRO to protect your business from interruptions due to mold!

Mold! That four letter word that seems to be everywhere! When most folks think of mold, they think of issues within residential homes and condominiums. However, mold can affect your business office, warehouse, and commercial building too. While most business often have more rigorous in-house inspections and year round maintenance or facility managers, mold can still appear at your business location, especially after a storm, water or fire damage, or other catastrophic event. It can often go unnoticed in areas that are not frequently used, from storage rooms or that office area no one has used for a while, or under cabinets, crawl spaces, and other seldom used areas. 

If you notice mold or your employees or clients have mentioned a 'musty smell', you should take the following steps to mitigate the mold as soon as possible, because it will not go away on its own!

• Find the source! Mold needs four things to survive and grow/spread: Food (any organic material, including dust!), Moisture/Humidity, Oxygen, and an ideal temperature range around 75-88 degrees, however some mold have optimal growth at lower temperatures, even as low as 60 degrees Fahrenheit according to some studies.
• Fix the source! If you have an active water intrusion or leak, get it repaired and dried out as soon as possible. The longer the water damage continues, the larger your challenge for cleanup will be. If your HVAC system is not running optimally, get it tested and repaired as soon as possible. Most buildings today are built very airtight, with little natural airflow to help regulate air fluctuations, so having an efficient and well running HVAC system is very important in the Venice Florida area.
• However, if you do have mold in a certain area, you want to close off the HVAC returns and vents in that area to prevent the spread of spores to other areas of your business, and do NOT blow air across any surfaces with visible or suspected mold growth.
• Do not attempt to clean with bleach or other disinfectants as these often do not fully remove the mold roots and when sprayed directly on the mold, can create spores that spread by going airborne. 
• If you suspect you have mold, give SERVPRO of Venice a call. We will do a no-cost walk-through of your property and help you with the next steps, which often involve having a state licensed Industrial Hygienist (IH) or Mold Assessor to provide testing and developing a protocol for mitigation. 

Please remember this: There is no such thing as 'mold removal'. Mold naturally found everywhere, but mold mitigation is what we do. If you have a mold problem, contact SERVPRO of Port Charlotte to help make it "Like it never even happened."