Can Water Damage Cause Mold?

Water can pose a serious threat to the health of any building. If there is a water leak or a flood from a weather event, it’s important to respond quickly to limit the damage and the cost of the cleanup. Not only can water damage pose a threat to structural integrity, but it can also lead to mold growth down the line. In this article we will take a closer look at how that happens and what steps can be taken to avoid it.

If you already have mold in your building as a result of water damage, the mold removal work should be handled by a professional team. Bring in AdvantaClean right away to thoroughly remove all existing mold and perform any repair work that is needed to make sure this problem doesn’t come back.

It Doesn’t Take Much

You don’t need to experience a massive flood – or even a major leak – to wind up with mold in your building. It takes surprisingly little water to kickstart the mold growth process, so any space with water damage is certainly at risk of being the catalyst for mold growth. In fact, you don’t even need to have water flowing freely in a space to cause mold – it could be nothing more than high humidity in a confined space that creates the conditions needed to generate mold problems.

Not only is very little moisture required for mold, but it doesn’t take very long to get started, either. Within just a day or two, small areas of mold can start to become visible on surfaces. As long as suitable conditions persist, those areas of mold are sure to expand, and you might quickly find that you have a major problem on your hands.

A Two-Stage Process

Discovering mold in any building is concerning, but the best way to respond is by staying calm and thinking logically through the issue. First, if there is mold, there must be water. Even if you didn’t know that your building had some type of water damage, mold is proof that the area is too moist and that’s an issue that needs to be solved. With that in mind, there are two main stages to this process:

•       Eliminating the water. First, the supply of water needs to be cut off to the area where mold is growing. Without getting rid of the moisture source, the mold is just going to keep coming back. This might mean repairing a leaky pipe, reducing the humidity in a crawl space, or taking some other steps.

•       Repairing the damage. With moisture eliminated, repair work needs to be completed to clean up the area and bring it back to its previous condition. Any mold growth needs to be thoroughly removed and remediated safely, and damaged wood and other materials need to be replaced.

Don’t waste a single moment after you discover mold growing in your building. Contact AdvantaClean to have the situation evaluated so a plan can be created for cleaning up the area and solving the problem once and for all.