spores-1By Paul C. Scheib

Mold is like dust. It accumulates over time and must be cleaned on a regular basis. If you are a mold allergy sufferer you should, at a minimum, clean your house for mold once a year. However, there are three factors for you to consider that increase the frequency of those cleanings.

The first factor in how often to clean is the geographical area you live in. If you are living in a heavily wooded area or in a farming community you will have very high levels of mold in the air during certain times of the year, typically Spring and Fall.

Desert or ocean front communities will have much lower levels of mold to deal with because those environments are more hostile to mold. Keep in mind these are low mold environments NOT no mold environments. If you live in an area with high exterior mold present you should increase your cleanings by 1 a year.

The second factor is how wet is the area you live in? The Northwestern and Southeastern United States have higher humidity than the Northeast or Southwest. That higher level of exterior moisture naturally raises the interior levels of moisture.

Your air conditioner works by removing moisture from the air to cool your home. Your heat pump works by pumping warm air into the home that dries up moisture. This reduces the overall level of moisture in your home or office, but it does not remove the humidity uniformly setting up the opportunity for mold to grow in less well ventilated areas. If you live in a high moisture area that is not the beach, add another cleaning each year.

The third factor to consider in how often you clean is guided by your personal level of sensitivity to mold. If you are a mild sufferer that only gets a few bouts a year you should consider cleaning once a year and use a high quality HEPA Air Filter the rest of the year.

If you are the type of person that gets a whiff of mold and it puts you in bed for three weeks you need to be cleaning bi-monthly. You also have the option to use a HEPA Air Filter and use a dehumidifier to maintain air quality in between cleanings. We have several customers that are in that highly sensitive category that uses these tools to keep them well while spacing out the cleaning to three or four times a year.

If you are a moderate sufferer you should add one more cleaning a year. If you are a severe sufferer you will want to add 3 more cleanings a year.

Below are two examples of how you figure a simple cleaning schedule.EC3 Products

The good news is that the cleanings don’t have to be very difficult. And you can get great results without spending hours on it. You will need to burn an EC3 Air Purification Candle in each of the rooms of your home or office for 3 hours. Then burn them for 1 hour for another 3 days. This helps with mold that is moving through your home via the air conditioning ducts. Use your EC3 Mold Solution to spray down all your hard and soft surfaces. This product works on contact. Use it like Febreeze® – spray it on and let it dry. You can wipe down any surfaces that could develop water spots after one minute.  Then after the product dries you can vacuum up any of the mold dust remnant.

Just like with all cleaning projects if you do it on a regular basis, the task is pretty easy. It is only when you let it go for years that it can become monumental. So mark your calendar with the number of mold cleanings you should be doing for your situation and make sure to follow through to keep yourself feeling good.

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