Mold is viewed as growing problem

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Mold is viewed as growing problem



That velvety, unappetizing growth darkening your kitchen wall, closet floor or bathroom shower may have had its origins in the oil crisis of the early 1970s.To get more news about 2k injection moulding, you can visit asm-mold.com official website.

Or it could have been born out of a water leak, or improper air conditioning. Even - sorry - your slovenly housekeeping.
Whatever the cause, mold is a growing problem that can lead to health problems, structural damage to homes and higher insurance costs.

But even in Gainesville - ranked the nation's fifth most humid city for July by meteorologist and author David Phillips - people don't have to live with fungal gardens growing in their homes."When you have clean and dry conditions, you very seldom have visible mold or mildew conditions," said James Kimbrough, a University of Florida professor of plant pathology whose specialty is mycology, the branch of botany that deals with fungi.

But in Florida and other humid climes, moisture is a fact of life. And moisture is the key ingredient in any recipe for the growth of the more than 17,000 known species of fungi called mold or mildew.Ironically, in the days before air conditioning - which removes moisture from the air inside a structure - mold wasn't as much a household problem as it is today. People opened windows to aerate their homes and stabilize its inside temperatures, which helps prevent moisture in the air from condensing into the liquid form mold thrives on. They built their homes off the ground to further increase air flow.

"People had a lot of techniques for preventing mold in the pre-air conditioning days," said Virginia Peart, a retired associate professor emeritus in UF's department of consumer and family science and a specialist in mold in the home environment.One woman told me that when she was a little girl, her job every Saturday was to put the family's shoes out in the sunshine," said Peart, who has written consumer bulletins on mold and mildew for the Cooperative Extension Service of UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. "Closets tend to collect moisture, and moldy shoes could be a real problem if they weren't dried out."

The advent of air conditioning helped reduce mold in homes and commercial buildings. But Kimbrough said modern-day mold problems began anew in the early 1970s, when the oil crisis that caused high fuel prices and shortages led to construction of super energy-efficient buildings with little "breatheability," or natural airflow.That often created a climate conducive to mold because of improper sizing of air-conditioning systems, usually oversizing," said Kimbrough, who as a consultant to several air-quality companies has identified mold or mold spores in hundreds of buildings in North Central Florida.

"An oversize system causes the building to cool too quickly and then the air conditioning compressor stays off a lengthy time," he said. "During those intervals, moisture encroaches from outside to condense on surfaces inside the house and mold starts to form."

More dramatic mold growth can occur after a building has been flooded or experienced a leak in its plumbing system. Kimbrough said wallboard or any surface that stays wet for more than about one week is almost guaranteed to host serious mold - which can start growing in as little as 48 hours after exposure to moisture.

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