# Help! Mold infestation in wood tool shed after flood. Best ways to remove? *PICS*



## MikeDonnigan (Apr 29, 2013)

About 6 months ago we had a flood in our area. The bottom of my 12x12 wood shed was submerged in 6 inches of water for a week. Afterwards I dried it out the best I could with fans and such but for various reasons I was not able to do anything else for 6 months or so. Checking on the current state of the shed there is white mold EVERYWHERE! Walls, ceiling, floor, shelves. Even weird fungus things growing. 

In your experience, can this be fixed without replacing the wood? I was told that the best solution is to mix 1 part bleach and 10 parts water and use a garden sprayer to spray the mixture everywhere and then scrub it down. The wood is still discolored from where the water is. Also the walls and ceiling have 2 layers of plywood with framing in between there where the insulation is, the shed is setup this way to work with AC. (broken unfortunately). Who knows what things look like inside the walls. Should I take down the wall boards and clean inside there too or is this overkill? You can see in one of my pictures I have a leak coming in from my roof in a corner that shows damaged wood and mold. I will likely have to replace the roof and I am thinking the floor as well.

Anyway, any tips on how to best remove the mold would be greatly appreciated!

Kevin


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## fire65 (Apr 27, 2013)

That is a lot of mold to deal with, but you might be able to kill it. Use the bleach solution 1:10 bleach to water, wet it down and let it dry. Put a good filter in a shop vac and vac it up. Some of it will probably grow back since it will be in the wood cracks. Wear a good respirator and rubber gloves, good luck. 
Let us know how it turns out.


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## Midlandbob (Sep 5, 2011)

Wood mould spores are everywhere all the time. The mould only grows and flowers(puts put spores) if the humidity/moisture content is above 20% or more. One you get it dry it will stay dormant as long as it stays dry. Mild mould especially mostly surface mold for a short period will not affect the strength of boards.
Clean up the old mould flowering , get it dry and possibly seal it in with some shellac or varnish after its dry. The discoloured areas are likely permanent unless painted.
Cleaning while wearing respiratory protection is wise due to allergic issues. It's nowhere as unsafe as many believe. They go into the forest on a bed of moody leave and don't worry so why a bit in a building causes stress.?


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## TimPa (Jan 27, 2010)

unfortunately mold is only one of your problems. flood waters carry unsanitary things like ecoli and others bacteria's. it should have been washed down immediately. your sandwhich walls may still be harboring some bad stuff. 

search on killing black mold, you'll find mixture combinations of tide, tsp, bleach and water. all good. i guess i would try killing what i can reach, let dry. ventilate well. check with local authorities on post-flood conerns such as yours.

my parents lived in a flood zone for 30 yrs. btdt.


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

I've had good luck with a 50/50 bleach and water mix, but I'm paranoid about building mold.

I wouldn't be willing to just treat what I can see there: if you've got mold in places where it's visible, you've got it in places where it's not. If it were me, I'd open up the walls, ceiling, and floor to treat inside as well... you can almost be positive it's there, and it can do you a lot of damage if you spend much time around it.


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