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I think my title needs an abstract, but please forgive me this is good stuff! 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is doing mold/fungi research with some amazingly pracitcal and useful applications.

 Digging around this weekend I found a copy of : 

Testing Antimicrobial Cleaner Efficacy on Gypsum Wallboard Contaminated with Stachybotrys chartarum  (click on the title to view a copy).    Check EPAs distributions as there may be more current copies. 

The article/presentation was written by an EPA group called the : U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, Air Pollution Prevention and Control Division, Research Triangle Park.

 The stuff this teams puts together is pure gold.  Everytime I find  an abstract with Dr. Marc Menetrez listed in the contributors I know its going to be good stuff.  I would probably read one of his grocery lists and find something useful.

The study listed above basicly evaluated the effectiveness of commerically available household cleaners, to clean and limit subsequent mold growth on drywall.  Basically they grew stachybotrys on several different types of gypsum board drywall (plain drywall, drywall with paint, drywall with wallpaper).  When the mold growth extensively covered the surface of each test piece, , they used 13 different types of cleaning products in accordance with the manufactures instructions to clean mold off.  They then returned the drywall to approximately 100% relative humidity and observered it for 6-months to see which pieces regrew the most mold.  (I am quickly paraphrasing here please please read the article for the exact methodology).

 The top 3 performing cleaners were rather suprising (in most cases there almost no mold re-growth on the test pieces at the 6-month mark).

“ Discussion. Results for the six types of GWB surfaces varied extensively. However, three cleaning products exhibited significantly better results than others. Lysol All-Purpose Cleaner-Orange Breeze (full strength) demonstrated results which ranked among the best in five of the six surfaces tested. Both Borax and Orange Glo Multipurpose Degreaser demonstrated results which ranked among the best in four of the six surfaces tested. ” (exceperted from the asbtract. I added bold to product names for ease of reading).

The authors of the study caution that it should not be treated as an endorsement. 

Tags:   Cleaners for Mold · Dr. Marc Menetrez · EPA Research · Mold Reasearch · StachybotrysNo Comments