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Saturday morning I caught an early flight out to the Big Island (Island of Hawaii) to perform lead air-monitoring for a project.  The contractor was doing some paint surface preparation (not a  full blown abatement) at a school in Laupahoehoe (more or less half-way in-between Hilo and Honokaa).  I had woken up extra early that morning and had already consumed approximately half my body-weight in coffee!  I don’t recommend for your average coffee drinker, but I routinely drink enough coffee to kill a much lesser man.

 On the flight I chatted with a pleasant woman in the adjacent seat.  She and her family were heading to Laupahoehoe also (her husband was actually the pilot of the plan !)  .  They are Oahu residents, but had recently constructed a second home on the Big Island, and were there to tidy a few things up.  During our conversation my occupation came up as a topic, and that segued into me asking about the ventilation and humidity at her new home. 

Time shares, vacation homes, and second homes here in Hawaii , frequently seem to develop mold issues.  Sometimes  its a small leak that goes unnoticed, or frequently  someone inadvertently introduces moisture into the environment (wet towels, beach chairs, running the AC at full blast), and then seals the house up tightly. 

She mentioned she would be careful with wet items, and because the house was not equipped with air-conditioning, she was not overly concerned but would keep an eye out to see if anything seemed to become damp over time.

 As we landed I wished her good luck and went to meet the contractor.  Our first day went well enough, and the dust control measures functioned well.  That night the contractor called me, “Hey stop my warehouse this morning and pick up two negative air units, a friend who lives up the road from me , had a leak last night in their house, and we are going to try to dry the carpet and flooring up so they don’t develop a mold problem.”

 We head up to the site , and then drive to his friend’s house as he explains the cause of the leak, ”He hooked up his washing machine last night, and there was an obstruction in the drain, it flooded part of the kitchen and the bedroom before they noticed it.  His wife said she had sat next to some haole (Hawaiian word for foreigner, caucasian) who just talked talked the whole trip!”

 Yup, I was now standing in the home of the woman I had sat next too on the plane.  Her husband was the contractor’s friend.  I hope thanks to our conversation (yeah I do talk too much )  she made her husband call in for some help right away.  Thanks to the drying they should not have a mold problem.  Negative air units are not neccessiraly the best for drying in all instances, but with the way we configured them they should work okay.

 We positioned  two 1,000 CFM units with one blowing under the carpet padding (which we had pulled up from the floor) and one blowing over the carpet itself.  The wet carpet, and padding were propped up and spaced out so that air could move across the damp floor easily.  Because the negative air units are HEPA filtered it should help to scrub the air somewhat.  They will have the hassle of re-tacking the carpet but I think its preferable to cutting it out and throwing it away, or worse having the flooring base become moldy itself.

There’s a few lessons that occurred to me here:

• Treat everyone as nicely as you they let you, its a small state and you may be surprised who you see again and the unusual ways you discover a social, family, or professional connection to someone
• An ounce of prevention (or rapid response) is worth a ton of cure.  With regards to water intrusion if you can stop the leak quickly, and begin the drying process, you may forestall more costly or damaging mold growth
• Laupahoehoe is almost impossible for me to pronounce, I think I said it correctly once, I speak southern accented English, and have some hearing loss from my time in the infantry, I just cant hear or replicate the vowel shifts, I now refer to it as “Hey you know that Lau-something place , halfway between Hilo and Waimea?”  , the person I am talking to almost  always then pronouncing it perfectly says “Oh you mean Laupahoehoe”

Tags:   Courtesy · Laupahoehoe · Mold · WaterNo Comments