Mold Removal

Hello everyone. We bought a house a year ago, and found that it had some serious moisture issues a couple months into it. We now have aspergillus/pencillin like type mold growing on concrete foundation walls. I need to remediate this myself. I have everything I need to prevent contamination but I am still trying to decide what to use on the walls to kill it before scrubbing it off. I do not want to use bleach or ammonia as I am sensitive to chemicals and we also have a baby in the house. I bought Concrobium but it says you had to never have used bleach on the surface and I might have done that a while ago. So I have to decide what to spray on there that will do the job but are safer. I am down to 3 options and I am not sure if any are good. 1) Useing 3% Hydrogen Peroxide 2) White Vinegar 3) Dawn Detergent. I worry about the concentrations of these items though. Would 3 percent do it? Do I need a higher percentage of Vinegar than is typical of grocery store brands? If anyone has any ideas or knows whether these will do the job please let me know. I keep seeing websites that say that vinegar will kill 82% of molds but I fail to find the original source of this claim. I forgot to mention I did buy and spray a small amount of a Thyme based disinfectant but that smelled pretty bad and that too seemed to cause some irritation even though it is natural.

So all in all I am just looking for some suggestions by those that might have some knowledge in this area. Thank you.

 

Guess you have to decide what "chemicals" you are willing to use and which you arent. Everything is a chemical in one way or another. Bleach is as much a chemical as hydrogen peroxide, vinegar or soap. None of them are naturally occurring products.

It goes to reason that there must be something ON the wall that needs to be cleaned off. I.E, it is dirty, or organic matter from the soil is in the water that is wetting the blocks. As such, you would probably have good results by simply washing the wall with a detergent. If you want to add vinegar, that's up to you. Then you would need to dry the wall, with fans, and/or dehumidifiers. And possibly look into waterproofing the EXTERIOR of the foundation walls, or addressing bad drainage/gutters.

People think mold must be "killed" which is not at all the point. Mold needs to be removed, (you dont necessarily need to "kill it" to remove it) and then the conditions that CAUSED the mold in the first place need to change. This usually means lowering humidity, increasing air flow, removing its food source.