DIY Crawl Space Guide: Mold Remediation Week 9

Lurking beneath your home, crawl space mold poses a silent threat to your property's structural integrity and your family's health. But with so much conflicting advice online, how do you tackle this problem effectively?

In Week 9 of our Crawl Space Repair Challenge, we dive deep into the world of mold removal and disinfection, separating fact from fiction. Personal protective equipment isn't just a precaution—it's essential. You'll need a full-face respirator with P100 or N95 filters, chemical-resistant suits, HEPA air scrubbers, and negative air machines to safely manage mold remediation without compromising your living space.

We explore the crucial distinction between EPA-registered and non-registered products. While EPA-registered disinfectants can legally make specific "kill claims" against mold, non-registered alternatives like hydrogen peroxide and sodium bicarbonate often provide more eco-friendly options that are equally effective. Understanding this regulatory nuance helps you make informed decisions about which products to use in your home.

Before grabbing your equipment, proper preparation makes all the difference. We walk through moisture level assessment, insulation removal, HVAC considerations, and air sealing techniques that create optimal conditions for successful remediation. From there, we compare removal methods—from professional approaches like soda blasting and dry ice blasting to more accessible DIY techniques including HEPA vacuuming and manual scrubbing.

Most importantly, we emphasize that effective mold remediation isn't complete without addressing the underlying moisture problems. Without proper humidity control, vapor barriers, and leak repairs, you're simply putting a bandage on a problem that will return with a vengeance. Join us as we provide comprehensive guidance on not just removing mold, but preventing its comeback for good.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Mold Removal
• 1:00 Personal Protective Equipment Essentials
• 2:16 EPA vs Non-EPA Registered Products
• 3:54 Steps Before Starting Removal
• 4:49 Removal Methods and Prevention
• 6:14 Closing Recommendations

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:00

Hey there, michael Church, crawl Space Ninja. Today we are going to look at mold removal and disinfectants in a crawl space. This is Crawl Space Repair Challenge, week 9. There's a lot of misinformation out there about how to address mold properly, so let's get started. Some of the things we'll be talking about today are personal protective equipment what is needed if you plan on doing this yourself. Some of the equipment you might wanna think about using if you're going on doing this yourself. Some of the equipment you might want to think about using if you're going to do this yourself as a mold remediation project in your crawl space. Also, what is an EPA versus a non-EPA registered product when addressing mold? Steps to do before you address that mold soda blasting versus other methods available out there, as well as avoiding a few mistakes that we've come across over the years.

Speaker 0: 0:48

If you are new to this Crawl Space Repair Challenge series we're doing, this is, as I mentioned, week nine. We've got many videos for you to take a look at. Last week was the vapor barrier video. We hope you'll check these out. So let's talk about PPE, personal protective equipment. You're going to need a full face respirator with a P100 or N95 mask when addressing mold. Make sure you have chemical resistant suits and gloves, because some of those chemicals can be pretty harsh depending on where you get them from. Be sure to use a HEPA air scrubber. Hepa stands for high efficiency particulate air filter. These are basically designed for mold remediation projects, and I would also recommend you get some negative air machines to reverse the flow of air down from the house into the crawl space so you're not accidentally exposing the living space to the mold in the crawl space. Make sure you use the right applicators. Some mold remediation products use fogging machines and some use spraying machines, so make sure you read the label to determine which one you need. There are some other mold remediation products out there, like sodium bicarbonate, which we call soda blasting. There's also dry ice blasting and different disinfectants that you can use that we'll be covering in this video. If you decide to do this yourself, most likely soda blasting and dry ice blasting will be difficult, so you'll probably have to rely on HEPA vacuuming or scrubbing with disinfectant.

Speaker 0: 2:16

What is the difference between an EPA versus a non-EPA registered product? Well, basically, an EPA registered product is required for pesticides. Well, basically, an EPA registered product is required for pesticides. This is a registration that the Environmental Protection Agency gives to pesticides and other products that make kill claims. For example, to claim that your product kills strep, it must be approved by the EPA in order to make that claim. So most of the time you'll see these as pest control products, so they'll have an EPA registration number.

Speaker 0: 2:47

A non-EPA registered products are products like peroxide, which we really love, sodium bicarbonate, which is a very green product product to use when addressing mold. Peroxide is as well, and other enzyme-based products that may be out there that don't make mold claims but they do know that they kill mold. And it's sort of like whenever you have the FDA that regulates vitamins versus drugs. There are proven vitamins that help do things for the body, but unless the FDA says that they do this or that they have a disclaimer that says the FDA doesn't recommend this. So that's kind of what the EPA does on the chemical side. Even though we all know peroxide kills mold. It's been used for years. Sodium bicarbonate kills mold. Other enzymes do that the product themselves cannot make a claim without the EPA giving them that permission. Also, non-epa registered products, as I mentioned before, they're usually more green, more biodegradable and more eco-friendly.

Speaker 0: 3:50

Before starting mold removal, here are some steps that you want to make sure you do. First, you want to check the moisture levels. Make sure that the wood moisture and the humidity are at a wood moisture level to where mold products would work. Typically that would be under 60% relative humidity and under 20% wood moisture level. Make sure that if there's anything covering that wood, like insulation, you want to remove that. You want to make sure you turn on that HEPA air scrubber and that negative air that I mentioned. Turn off the HVAC system because you don't want to be distributing mold throughout your duct work. Air seal any penetrations in the subfloor that you can. Air seal. Wear the proper PPE, as I mentioned before, and get the people and the pets out of the house at least while you're doing the mold remediation, especially those that are sensitive to molds and indoor air quality. Also, let me know down below in a comment if you have some recommendations for others to follow whenever they're addressing mold. We'd love to hear from you.

Speaker 0: 4:48

Mold removal methods. Soda blasting versus dry ice blasting. We did a video about the differences between those two and instead of going through all of that in this video, I'm going to put a link to this video down below so you can watch soda blasting versus dry ice blasting, and a lot of companies out there will use HEPA vacuuming as a third option for mold removal. Or you could obviously scrub the wood clean with mold disinfectants and rags and different things like that To prevent the mold from coming back. You need to make sure that the moisture does not return. So if you do have a mold issue in your crawl space, make sure you do everything you can to address the water problem that caused the mold problem, like controlling humidity. Make sure you install that dehumidifier to stay in the crawl space. Ensure that you've got the flooding or the standing water addressed. Install that vapor barrier to cover that earth so that it's not giving up too much moisture for the dehumidifier to address. And, of course, if you have any leaks in the subfloor, take care of those as well. Hope you liked this video.

Speaker 0: 5:54

I'm Michael Church with Crawl Space Ninja. If you haven't had a chance to check out my book Crawl Space Repair Myths Busted, it has some great information in there about mold remediation and the crawl space. Also, if you need to do a personal one-on-one consultation with me, you can find that at buymeacoffeecom. The link is in the description. Please like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you find this information great. We hope you'll make some comments down below on how we can improve, or if you have some suggestions for our viewers. As I mentioned, I'm Michael Church Crawl Space Ninja. We hope you make it a happy and blessed day and we'll see you later.