Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Is There Mold In your Life

Mold can live and grow almost everywhere. Common building materials like sheet rock and cellulose insulation are perfect foods for mold. Sometimes mold infestation is visual to the eye and obvious but mold likes to hide behind walls and also in air conditioning and heating vents so you may not be aware that you have a mold problem. Mold loves moisture so if you have any type of water leakage in your home or if the weather has been particularly wet you are likely to have mold. It is estimated that 80-90% of all buildings have a mold problem.

Mold can cause many health problems, including allergies, asthma, flu like symptoms, mental fogginess, chronic coughs, headaches, sleep problems even death. While modern medicine can prescribe medications to help you deal with some of your symptoms, you will not truely solve your mold related health problems unless you can get rid of the mold.

How do we get rid of mold. The most commonly used solution is chlorine bleach.While chlorine bleach will kill mold on contact- chlorine bleach is toxic in itself. In addition because bleach is liquid, cleaning with bleach gives mold the moisture it needs to regrow . There are other chemical fungicides that can be used on mold but even if they are 99.999% effective, since mold can have 1 million spores per square inch, they will still leave behind 10 pores per square inch that will regrow the mold colony A third solution is an ozone generating machine. However ozone generators can cause lung irritation and create unsafe levels of ozone in your home (and are not that effective in controlling mold) In fact the California Department of Health Services strongly recommends that you NOT use an ozone air cleaner in any occupied space

So is there a safe solution to mold problems? Dr. Edward Close, a recognized expert in environmental science, has found certain theraputic essential oils to be a safe and effective way to kill mold. Studies done by Dr. Close indicate that diffusing this blend of essential oils not only destroyed mold spores, but also removed mold spores, dead and alive, from the air. For more information of ridding your home of mold using this nontoxic method see http://www.blissfullymoldfree.com/