Kaboom! And no more nasty black mold.
Walls? All gone.
Getting rid of the black mold has been a bit of a challenge - I don’t have detail shots of it, but the mold had grown all the way into the beams. So, after a longish quest to find sufficiently nasty chemicals, I ended up with Fiberlock’s “shockwave” (bough it from Abatix - nice folks, but bloody hard to find. Mail order it, it’s easier). This is essentially a disinfectant. It smells and looks like powerful soap, but the warning labels indicate that it’s quite toxic. I sprayed it liberally with my HVLP painting rig, and used a remote air supply (by allegro) . This is one of those full face sealing rigs that allow the user to spray seriously poisonous car paint.
It turns out that borates are a great way to kill mold, too, and they’re non-toxic. I’m going to do a second application Shockwave - on a cold day, so it doesn’t just evaporate off. The longer the contact time, the more effective it is. The bottle recommends ten minutes, and it really does need to soak into the beams. Finally, I’ll do a liberal treatment with a borate solution. This is 1 cup of “20 mule team borax” to one gallon of water. The borates will remain in the house, and should retard any future recurrence of mold. Apparently, borates are added as a mold retardant to insulation batts.
I no longer have the “headache in my lungs” feeling that I used to get with just a few minutes in the home - and any trace of the mold smell is gone. It’s not even musty in my basement. And that’s after just the first application.
In other news, I need half a new roof. Though I have to say, I love the look of the place in its current state… more skylights. Hmm.
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