I am planning an attic mold cleanup-- Conventional wisdom is to use bleach and water, but when I google it... I get a lot of hits saying that it is a myth that Bleach kills mold.
The EPA brochure does little to clear it up.
Anyone with any real-world experience or other good info.
I can say for certain it turns it a perly white :) As for wether or not its dead, I couldn't say. I don't see why bleach would kill mold, its not that harsh of a chemical. Perhaps thats why we like to use it.
Bleach may kill what it comes in contact with but much of the mold is inside the wood and once the bleach dries, it is no longer effective. Using enough bleach to saturate the wood may harm and certainly could change the color of the wood itself. Fungacides continue to work after the liquid carrier has dried.
I discussed this subject with a PhD Molecular Biologist who assured me that bleach does kill mold. Treat it with a watered down solution (don't remember the ratio). Let it dry. Do it again. Let it dry. Do it a third time.
Of course, the mold is there because it's damp. Treating the symptoms without fixing the cause won't help.
-rev
Jack wrote:
It didn't turn my mold white at all. But I'm almost sure it killed it. After using bleach twice, I realized I would have to paint again if I wanted to make it white.
Alcohol is not that harsh either, but it kills germs.
Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.
I had some black mold spots on bare wood in my attic.
Sprayed 50% water 50% bleach directly on it.
I did nothing else, no brushing no wiping nothing.
I corrected the source of the moisture that casued the problem.
The mold disappeared and has not returned.
Mark
Not nearly as well as bleach from what I've read.
Bob
I just returned from Mississippi where the houses are damaged by the storm surge from Hurricane Katrina. What I saw down there was that the walls and insulation had been removed to air out the studs. The residents told me they spray bleach/water solution and wait 2-3 weeks for the mold to die. The houses we worked on did not have mold in the wall studs. I did see houses where mold was still visible but that was because no work had been down yet to them.
depends on what kind of alcohol and how dilute.
I doubt a bottle of vodka would do much and 70% Isopropyl would be better but Straight Methanol or 198 proof Ethanol (or denatured ethanol) would work pretty good. Notice how doctors use similar before giving you a shot.
Alcohol is not advised as it may deteriorate the plastic or synthetic parts. Alcohol diluted by a tub of water would probably be ineffective alltogether. Try brewing a batch of bathtub gin.
These tubs have been around a long time. I'm sure if there were a real health risk, it would have destroyed that market by now.
Bleach works well diluted in water at almost any concentration (you can smell) it will kill microorganisms.
That would just make stronger my point about bleach.
Although when the nurse gives me a shot, she's never wiped my arm with bleach. :)
Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.
And I have experience also with moss, on my fence. The picket fence is 25 years old and some parts get very little sun. A lot of that part has moss growing on the rails. I sprayed with the recommended concentration of bleach, and it didn't do much. So I sprayed strraight bleach, and it killed the moss. Bleached the wood too I think -- something turned it white. I waited too long, and these parts will have to be replaced, but I figure it bought me 2 to 4 extra years.
Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.
harsh of a chemical.
my arm with
And you are probably glad she didn't. It is pretty caustic, and it stinks. Many people would have reactions to it I would guess. When I donate blood, they use iodine. Every such agent has its uses. Bleach just happens to be more available, and cheaper than many others. Alcohol probably does a sufficient job of cleaning injection sites. It disolves oils well. It then evaporates quickly so it doesn't enter your body.
A friend of mine some years ago was a med-tech. She told me that her lab did their own tests of a number of "steralizing agents", and she was surprised how poorly the alcohol did in the tests.
Bob
I suggest that you thoroughly wash your hands in concentrated bleach and then say it isn't harsh. That soapy slimy feeling is your skin dissolving.
I don't know about the use in an attic, but bleach is a standard disinfectant (meaning it kills stuff) used in laboratories. Standard bleach is
5-6 percent Sodium hypochlorite. The killing power varies with the strength and the time in contact. Straight out of the bottle takes contact of less than a minute, diluted with 1/5 with water you need a contact of about 15 minutes to kill all microorganisms. I'm not sure how long the stuff would remain liquid if you spray it in the attic, but it wouldn't be very long, so I would spray undiluted stuff.
How about some real information. Iodine is pretty harsh. Alcohol is not used for cleaning, it is used to kill the microorganisms so that you don't push live organism under the skin when you stick a needle in. The best concentration of alcohol is about 70 percent (140 proof), a higher concentration is less effective. All of this has been know for decades. Bleach is highly effective. Why did the lab where the med tech worked do their own tests? This information is widely published in all sorts of journals and pamphlets put out by lab materials sellers.
he
Curiosity question: why is higher concentration less effective?
Bleach does kill mold, by removing its Oxygen. Common bleach is 97-98% water therefore I dont dilute. If I dilute I notice I must often double treat an area of concrete I do every year. If conditions are not remedied mold comes back , because its airborn and everywhere. Bleach penetrates wood just like any other treatment but looses its efectivness when it evaporates.
try the cdc pages at:
I never claimed to know all the ins and outs of alcohol or bleach. I raised alcohol because it's a not a harsh chemical and yet it is strong enough to kill germs. Similarly, bleach is not disqualified from being able to kill mold *just because* it is not harsh. Like you just said, "Every such agent has its uses." Others have posted convincingly that bleach *does* kill mold. So that's good enough for me..
But since bleach has come up, I'll mention that I noticed that Clorox Bleach as currently sold here, has no chloriine in it. I think it has another halogen instead. I was surprised. Then I noticed that Clorox is spelled without an H.
I though that maybe chlorine had been banned because of safety reasons, but I checked other bleaches and at least one had chlorine in it. So why is this?
I suspect I'm overly influenced into thinking chlorine is important because of the common term "chlorine bleach", but why is there more than one kind now and does either one have any advantages over another?
Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.
There have always been bleaching agents other than chlorine. Including fermented urine for bleaching leather, where I'm pretty sure the active agent in ammonia.
Laundry bleaches now include things other than chlorine ostensibly because chlorine is hard on cloth and dyes, and they've found whitening/brightening agents that work better with less fading and damage to the cloth.
I'm pretty sure that clorox still sells a chlorine-bleach too, you just have to check the label to make sure which you're getting. Non-chlorine bleaches should not be used to shock your well....
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.