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ACK! My shelves are GREEN!!

Hey guys:

In all the dry weather we've had here in the NE (Yeah, right) some shelving in the basement acquired a LOVELY layer of mold.

The shelving is steel Gorila Racks with particle board decking. Nothing else down there is the least bit moldy--only the particle board, which surprised me, considering all the icky chemicals involved.

My thoughts are:

  1. Take the shelves out on a bright sunny day (yeah, right), to kill the mold, then oil-base primer followed by "Kitchen and Bath" paint, hoping to score some from the Borg Oops pile.

  1. Replace the 1/2" P-board with 1/2" BC Yellow Pine plywood. I've quite a lot of plywood scraps down there and none of them are moldy.

  2. Something else?

What do you guys think?

Charles

Reply to
Charles Krug
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Throw the boards away NOW. They are not worth trying to save. Mold is a horrible problem that you don't even want to think about so get rid of it while you can. Clorox the rest and rinse well. Find out why mold started. Do you need to go to Sam's and get one of their $80 dehumidifiers? Sounds like it. I use one in my house the entire summer and throw away at least 3 gals. water a day.

Reply to
Ramsey

Some years back, SIL worked in store fixtures(show cases, checkout stands, etc.) industry. One of their main materials was what they called "bearer board", actually MDF. Machines smoothly, takes laminates nicely,etc. NOW - - - he got some scraps and made basement shelves from them, and surprise, they started looking green! Some research found one of the main components of MDF is *FERTILIZER*, and we figured his shelves weren't molding, they were starting to GROW stuff. To my thinking, particle board is a relative to MDF, so FWIW, maybe this is your problem. I do however, agree with Ramsey, the best thing to do is get rid of them and start fresh with plywood, sealed and painted. My .02 Nahmie

Reply to
Norman D. Crow

Reply to
Ramsey

Knotty pine is WELL outside of the budget for this sort of a project, don't you think? Money'd be better spent on all steel Unistrut shelving.

I mean, you gonna dream, why not solid teak? :-)

Is bleech solution compatible with p-board?

Reply to
Charles Krug

Lotsa causes. This is the first time we've had problems with enough damp to cause mold. Curious bit is that only the P-board seems to be affcted.

So dehumidifier moves up the list right after the car's brakes, which is rather more important right now.

Reply to
Charles Krug

Reply to
Ramsey

Check those brakes out on the way to Sam's to get you a de-humidifier!

Reply to
Ramsey

Depends on where you are. In some places teak is cheaper than pine or plywood.

Around here I'd guess that #3 pine 1x shelving would be about 50% more expensive than 1/2" SYP BC plywood.

All you need to do is wipe it down. You don't need to soak it overnight or anything like that.

Reply to
Fred the Red Shirt

I'll tell you what I did..Throw the wood away ASAP. There is no way to clean them up. I have the same shelves and the wood looked like some kind of high school science project gone bad. I have not seen that many colors since I found the two month old meat loaf in the back of the fridge. Is it something in the glue that they use? I just went down to the local electronics store and picked up a 50 pint (that seems to be the way they rate them) dehumidifer for $200 (the jointer will have to wait a little longer)Does any one know what % of humidity would be good to strive for? Good luck Tom S.

Reply to
tshiker

Charles wrote: Group: rec.woodworking Date: Mon, Aug 18, 2003, 2:19pm (EDT+4) From: snipped-for-privacy@pentek.com (Charles=A0Krug) Hey guys: In all the dry weather we've had here in the NE (Yeah, right) some shelving in the basement acquired a LOVELY layer of mold.

****************************************************** In Florida we use a lot of bleach (Clorox, etc.) mixed with water to kll mold and mildew. Some plastics serve as a nutriment to mold while others do not. Peace ~ Sir Edgar =F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8= =F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8=F8
Reply to
Sir Edgar

Around 50% is considered "normal" on my little humidity meter thingie. Hygrometer? You might want to buy one for the affected room, so you can get some sense of how well the thing is working. I got this one at Wal-Mart, in Housewares. I don't remember how much, but it was cheap.

I bought one of those (dehumidifiers) for my crawlspace recently. It was dank like a cave down there, with damp mud all over the top of the vapor barrier from the flooding, including some big piles from various excavations I had done in the course of trying to deal with the constant flooding. I had visions of rot setting up, and having a nightmare on my hands, but it took me a long time to scrape up enough cash. It was a real relief to finally get this thing and start it running.

I set it for the max, and it ran for about two weeks (the water drains into the sump I just dug, and gets pumped out periodically) before shutting off for the first time. Now it runs off and on, and everything down there is very nearly bone dry. There's a hard crust forming on those mud piles. I don't remember what % "bone dry" is, but it's probably around 20%.

Anyway, I'm just saying they really work. Worth the money.

Reply to
Silvan

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