Category: Leaks/Dry Rot

Winter in Oregon can be a tough time for many living species, but for mold, wet winter months are the perfect conditions for the growth of dangerous mold spores.

Mold loves damp, wet places, and thrives in these humid conditions, quickly infecting your home.

Mold isn’t just unsightly (and smelly!): mold can grow undetected for years and slowly eat away at your home’s internal structures, affecting their integrity and destroying your home bit by bit.

More dangerously, some types of mold can produce mycotoxins that are toxic and can trigger several health issues, such as asthma, allergies, sinus infections, and headaches, warns the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Preventing mold from growing is the best way to keep your health and homes strong and healthy. Keep reading to find out what you can do to prevent mold infestation in your home.

What is mold?

Mold is a generic name for all sorts of fungi that grow and multiply: it only needs moisture and a food source like wood to grow.

In nature, mold serves a useful purpose: decomposition. However, in the home, mold can be dangerous for humans and damage your home structurally and aesthetically.

Many homes in Oregon have water damage from our wet seasons, and this provides ideal conditions for mold to grow. The small spores of mold quickly reproduce and drift through the air and around your home, and potentially into your lungs.

You may see ugly patches of black, brown, pink, or green growths on shower doors, walls, or other visible areas—or you may not be aware at all that mold is growing in your attic, behind the walls, or under your carpets.

Finding mold: 5 signs to look for

1. Uneven or poor attic insulation

Uneven, bulgy insulation in your attic can indicate the presence of water damage from roof leaks, and this can create perfect conditions for mold.

If your attic air circulation and insulation is poor, you won’t have proper ventilation and mold is likely to grow.

Mold spores can travel through very small openings, and can make their way from the attic down to the rest of the house. If you spot water leaks in your attic, it’s important to get them fixed before mold takes over.

2. Soft, spongy floorboards

You know that feeling in old houses when the wooden floorboards seem to give way under your feet?

It’s likely that a soft, spongy area on hardwood floors indicated rotten wood, which will need to be replaced. If you don’t replace spongy, wet floorboards, mold can continue to grow and spread.

3. Bubbling paint on walls

Have you ever noticed how paint seems to ‘bubble’ sometimes on a wall? This usually indicates water damage and internal moisture in the wall.

Painting over the bubbles won’t solve the problem: you need to find the source of the leak and fix it, and then remove the mold.

4. Visible signs of mold

Look carefully at walls, windows, and floorboards. Mold is commonly found in bathrooms, laundry rooms, and other areas where moisture is likely to become trapped.

Mold and mildew are often confused: the type of mold you have will determine how you get rid of it.

Mold can grow in patches that penetrate the surface of the material it’s growing on. Mold can be black, green, pink or other colors and tends to grow on walls and inside permanent structures. It’s fuzzy and slimy, with irregular shaped spots.

Mildew, on the other hand, is powdery, white or grey, smells strongly, and tends to grow on organic surfaces and materials. Mildew (a type of mold) typically remains flat on the surface of the material.

5. Unexplained physical symptoms

Have a persistent sinus infection, coughing, or itchy throat or eyes, and it just doesn’t seem to go away? If you’ve consulted a doctor and your condition isn’t improving, consider the possibility that your health issues are being caused by mold.

Make an inspection of your house, call in a professional if you need to, and mention the possible presence of mold in your home to your doctor.

How to get rid of mold

Mold is everywhere, but you can make your home inhospitable to it.

• Fix water leaks as soon as you spot them and remove sources of excess moisture
• Install a strong vent or fan in the bathroom (and remember to use it when showering)
• Open windows when cooking and for 10-15 minutes every day if possible
• Immediately dry and remove wet carpets, fabrics, furniture, and curtains
• Make sure you have adequate ventilation in all rooms of your home
• Clean out your gutters regularly to prevent leaks
• Inspect your walls, attic, crawl spaces, and roof regularly for signs of moisture
• Keep a little space between your furniture and the wall so air can pass between them
• Use your air conditioning in humid weather and your heating in cold seasons

Call in the professionals

You can remove small amounts of mold and mildew with bleach and water (wear protective gear), but larger areas will have to be removed by professionals.

Check out the Oregon government factsheet or the Oregon Mold in Your Home FAQ to find out more or contact us at Keith Green Construction to find out how we can help prevent mold growth in your home.

Do you know the one mistake that so many homeowners make? Ignoring the first signs of water damage on wood and timber in their homes.

Left untreated, water damage can end up costing you far more than simply fixing a leak or faulty gutter. What looks like minor damage that you’d be tempted to ignore can quickly become a large-scale wet or dry rot issue and end up costing you thousands.

When too much water infiltrates timber, this provides a fertile ground for fungus to germinate and grow. Most homeowners will at some stage likely encounter dry rot or wet rot: it could be small-scale damage to a garden fence, or it could be more significant damage to windows, doors, or structural timbers in roof or walls.

Dry rot and wet rot are both forms of fungal decay that attacks wood. The dampness and conditions determine which kind of fungus develops, and how they grow and spread.

Excess moisture can come from rising damp from the ground, external penetration through leaks or cracks in the wall or roof, or internal moisture from trapped condensation.

Once established, they spread quickly to destroy even more timber nearby and cause even more damage, so taking action early is important.

Dry rot and wet rot are different fungi, so they require different kinds of treatment.

Dry Rot

Dry rot can cause very serious problems to homes. Dry rot comes from a fungus called Serpula lacrymann, also called brown rot.

It often grows in dark, humid areas and you might not notice it for a long time. Conditions in Oregon are ideal for dry rot to develop.

Dry rot attacks the cellulose in the wood, drawing moisture from the wood, which turns dark brown and becomes brittle.

As it grows, it searches out more wood that it can infect, even if the wood is dry and doesn’t have excess moisture. At this stage, it can simply colonize healthy wood and grow more than a meter every few months.

It’s not as common at wet rot, but it is more serious. Dry rot can grow on wood that has become wet, usually with more than 20% moisture content.

What to look for

Keep an eye out for:

• Shrinking or cracked wood that’s dark or with cube-like cracks
• White or grey fluffy cotton-like growth (mycelium) with ‘teardrops’ (where the fungus gets its name from) on it
• Orange or deep red fruiting bodies with big rust-red pores around them
• Wood strands that are brittle and dry, and crumple in your hands
• A moldy, damp, musty smell

Wet rot

Wet rot is more common and less serious than dry rot. Wet rot can be caused by several different types of fungus such as Coniophora puteana or Poria vaillantii, unlike dry rot which only comes from Serpula lacrymann.

Wet rot doesn’t spread to healthy dry wood and only affects wood or timber that has been wet for a long time and has 30-60% moisture content levels. Typically, this will happen when there are plumbing, guttering, roof, pipe leaks or even a leaking washing machine that keep the timber wet consistently.

Any damp and humid condition with poor ventilation increases the chances of getting wood rot. The excess water is the perfect breeding ground for the fungus to grow, feeding on the wood and destroying it bit by bit.

What to look for

Keep an eye out for:

• Localized fungus on wet timber or wood
• Spongy and soft timber (rather than crumbly like dry rot)
• Wood that looks darker than other wood nearby
• A bleached appearance to wood
• Flaky or damaged paint with soft wood behind it
• A musty, damp, moldy smell
• Wood surrounding an obvious leak

What to do about dry rot and wet rot

If you have wet rot, the easiest thing is to find and eliminate the source of moisture, and then remove and replace the water damaged timber. That should take care of the wet rot issue. If you’re replacing timber, make sure it’s treated to protect from future infestation in case of moisture.

Dry rot may require a more intense chemical treatment to remove the infestation, because it may have spread beyond the damaged wet timber and attacked the dry, healthy one. A professional will try to expose all the infested wood and find out the extent of the infestation.

The source of the moisture still needs to be found and dried out, the area cleaned, and all timber surrounding the dry rot area treated.

Call a pro

It can be hard to spot wet rot or dry rot before the infestation is well established, because frequently the initial growth is hidden behind wall paneling or deep in lintel cracks or joist ends.

It’s not an exact science identifying the type of rot you have, as it can affect timber in different ways: best to deal with leaks and excess moisture immediately, and call in a trained pro if you think you have wet rot or dry rot issue.

If you have a leak or suspect water damage, give us a call—we’re here to help.