How Fast Will Mold Appear After Water Damage to Your Home?

7/13/2018 (Permalink)

How Fast Will Mold Appear After Water Damage to Your Home?

While water damage to your home is bad enough, there could be more damage just waiting to happen if get rid of the water and moisture in time. It takes just a little water for mold to grow, so when your home suffers water damage from a flood, broken pipe or faulty sump pump; there are a lot of places that mold can easily grow. So how fast does mold appear after water damage to your home?

It Depends.

There’s really no definitive answer to how fast mold can appear after there has been water damage. If you ask mold remediation experts, you will most often hear 24-48 hours. Many water damage and mold remediation companies have observed this first hand going to homes that have suffered from water damage. On the other hand, these same experts have seen homes that have experienced water damage and have witnessed no mold.

It gets even more confusing when you look at research experiments that scientists have performed to determine mold growth. In a 2006 article in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene titled “Controlled Study of Mold Growth and Cleaning Procedure on Treated and Untreated Wet Gypsum Wallboard in an Indoor Environment”, researchers took drywall and immersed the bottom inch in water. The researchers observed the drywall pieces over an 8 week period for mold growth. Some of the drywall was treated with primer paint while others were left untreated and bare.

Surprisingly, the researchers didn’t discover any sign of mold growth until 2 weeks into the test. This is obviously way beyond the typical 24-48 hour window that is typically repeated and many times observed out in the field. These results only tested drywall and in one environment. The results have obviously differed in real situations of homes that have experienced water damage and observable mold growth. So what is different from these situations? To answer that, we have to understand how mold grows in the first place.

How Does Mold Grow or Happen?

Mold is microscopic in size and doesn’t really become apparent until it has grown or colonized. Mold is spread by mold spores which are carried by wind currents and are present in the air outside. About a billion mold spores can occupy a square inch of space. While there are more mold spores present in the air outside, mold spores also exist in our homes but at lower levels. Once mold spores are introduced to the right amount of moisture, humidity, temperature and food source, they begin to grow into what we dread as mold in our home. If left untreated, the mold can quickly colonize and grow out of control.

So what is a food source for mold? Mold needs a dead organic substance to feed off of and grow. If you look around your home, it is full of dead organic materials like wood, fabrics, drywall, insulation, leather, dirt and dust. With the right conditions like a flooded basement or busted pipe, mold can thrive. So how do you stop mold? Is there anything to prevent it?

Stop Mold Growth and Damage Before It Begins

The key to stopping mold growth before it begins is timing. If your home should suffer water damage, call the water damage cleanup and restoration professionals at SERVPRO of Fairfield County. They will remove all the water and treat any water damaged parts of your home before mold can take hold. If mold has started to appear, they can also remediate the mold as well. While you can’t remove the food source normally, you can take away the water and the moisture thus stopping mold from growing or happening.

Contact SERVPRO of Fairfield County today for water damage cleanup & restoration, as well as, mold remediation.