Should I be concerned????

[Thom2]

We have a finished basement with a small 8'ishx8'ish "utility room" where the water heater is and miscellaneous junk gets shoved. Well today I moved everything out of that room to sort thru the forgotten junk and try to organize everything. When I moved the stuff against the back wall, I found this ......



Having never dealt with mold before, I'm wondering if this is cause for concern or if it's just the moisture in the block pushing the paint off. This end of the basement is below ground level.

Thoughts or suggestions???

[Pappy]

What i'm seeing looks llike a moisture/paint problem. When You clean it up, use a bleach solution to be sure.

[Russianwolf]

yeah, that looks like the lime is leaching out of the blocks and pushing the paint off. No biggy.

The are some other areas in there that look like they are dark spots on top of the paint. That might be the start of some mold/mildew.

[Tom Slick]

just hose it down with some bleach/water mix and you'll be fine. I found mold while remodeling my kitchen, did a bunch of research and found out the strain that is actually harmful is rare.

[crokett]

I prefer borax to bleach for killing mold especially with a porous material like brick. The borax will kill what is there and then act as a preventative for new mold forming. Bleach will only kill what is there.

[TheRic]

I have / had mold problems in my house. Was told the problem was resolved, found out later they weren't. You name the type, and color, I had/have it.

Tom is correct black mold is rare, but many different types of mold can cause other problem. I have noticed while in this house I get mold in food, clothes (it stains, and smells), walls, ceilings quicker than I did any other place (if at all in another place).

Things I have found out, some first hand, some second hand from a friend who use to fight other people's mold problems. Bleach works the best in killing mold, Clorox works the best!! You can even dilute the Clorox a little, other brands you can not.

A dry environment will help mold from starting, spreading. If you already have mold, then the dry environment will cause the the mold spores to flack off and travel thru the air (spread). SO you need to KILL the mold first. Then the mold you missed, you need to prevent from spreading.

Borax helps prevent mold, in clothing, wood, etc. But if you clean off the Borax it eliminates the positive effects in stopping mold.

[Hellrazor]

Thom,

That looks like efflorescence under the paint. That means exterior moisture is wicking its way inside. Spray with bleach to kill any mold, scrape all that loose paint off, wire brush the area and coat it with DryLoc.

[dlminehart]

I read recently that, for purposes of mold/fungus killing, you only need 10% bleach to 90% water. Stronger than that doesn't do any more good.

[Ed62]

I read recently that, for purposes of mold/fungus killing, you only need 10% bleach to 90% water. Stronger than that doesn't do any more good.

That might be right. I used to work in a photo finishing lab, running an E-6 (slides) processor. We had problems like that on the rollers, and always used the 10% solution for cleaning.

Ed