You Need the Pros to Deal with Mold Damage in Seal Beach

4/13/2023 (Permalink)

Count on the technicians at SERVPRO to assist with any mold damage in your Seal Beach home.

How SERVPRO Technicians Ensure Safety While Cleaning Mold Damage in Seal Beach Homes?

Mold damage in your Seal Beach home can affect you in various ways. An unaddressed mold situation can quickly get out of hand and might even cause structural damage to your property. Also, safety should be paramount while dealing with it.   

Professionals like SERVPRO have the training and experience to safely handle mold damage in your Seal Beach home. One of the prime objectives during the remediation process is to prevent the release of spores, fragments, and dust from surfaces into the indoor air. It is crucial to control air movement from a contaminated area to unaffected areas of the building as it can carry airborne spores and spread the contamination.

Establishing Containment During Mold Remediation

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the first line of defense should be engineering controls to ensure safety while dealing with mold. Some of the engineering controls that can enhance the safety of the operation include-

• Erecting isolation barriers
• Creating pressure differentials
• Suppressing dust formation and aerosolization
• HEPA vacuuming and filtration

In most situations of fungal damage, SERVPRO technicians build a structural enclosure to separate the microbe-affected area from the unaffected area in your Seal Beach home. SERVPRO technicians use PVC pipes, wood framing, or spring-loaded expansion poles to build an enclosure covered with 6-mil polyethylene sheeting. These structural supports are not always necessary if the technicians can securely attach the isolation barrier to walls and ceilings. SERVPRO always uses fire-retardant polyethylene material with a flame spread rating of 25 or less to minimize fire hazards.

The restoration industry often refers to isolation barriers as 'critical barriers.' They may be used to isolate portions of buildings, mechanical systems like HVACs, and other openings in the structure.

Using Airflow to Maximize Safety and Efficiency of Restoration

Controlling the airflow between the microbe-contaminated and uncontaminated portions of the structure is crucial for the safety and efficacy of the remediation process. SERVPRO technicians use Air Filtration Devices (AFDs) to achieve this goal.

When technicians use AFDs to create negative pressure within the affected area, they are called Negative Air Machines (NAMs). A series of filters in the AFDs can filter the air removing airborne spores and particles of mold from the air.

For instance, the primary and secondary filters in AFDs prevent the overloading of the primary HEPA filter, which can remove 99.97% particles greater than 0.3 microns.

Apart from the HEPA vacuum systems, SERVPRO technicians also use standard wet-dry or canister vacuum systems during the restoration process. However, they are used only in specific circumstances, including:

• Vacuuming outdoors that too with appropriate precautions for preventing worker, occupant, or public exposure
• Used in high-volume laminar-airflow cleaning chambers
• When the exhaust from the vacuum system is vented outside the building
• In situations where the aerosolized particles they exhaust don't create exposure issues, or the particles can be adequately contained with engineering controls

SERVPRO takes a lot of effort to ensure that mold remediation is safe and efficient. Our goal is to restore your home “Like it never even happened.”

If you suspect that you might have contamination issues in your home, call SERVPRO of Seal Beach / Los Alamitos / Cypress at (562) 431-9400; our trained technicians are always ready to answer any questions you might have.