What is Mold?

2/21/2019 (Permalink)

Microbial growth

What is mold?

Mold is  a group of filamentous fungi that are common on food or wet materials. This includes the green Penicillium species that produces penicillin, and fungi that spoil our bread, fruit, cheese and crops. Most of these are Ascomycetes that produce a lot of spores.

The majority of the molds that grow on damp building materials are found in the soil and are adapted to grow on a wide variety of materials. Outdoors, molds live in the soil, on plants, and on dead or decaying matter. There are thousands of species of mold and they can be any color. Different mold species are adapted to different moisture conditions ranging from very wet to just damp. Many times, mold can be detected by a musty odor. Live spores act like seeds, forming new mold growths (colonies) under the right conditions. All of us are exposed to a variety of fungal spores daily in the air we breathe, both outdoors and indoor. (American Industrial Hygiene Association definition) 

COMMON CAUSES:

• flooding from storms or hurricanes that bring in outside elements in from outside.
• roof leaks from water traveling through all the drywall and insulation.
• leaking pipes, sewer back-ups
• damp basements or crawl spaces due to a high water table or poorly managed rainwater drainage