Tag: mold and iaq

Mold and Its Effects on Your Health

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When mold is discovered in your home, a common first thought is “is it harmful?” After all, many media publications, blogs, and internet discussions have labeled mold as “toxic,” “deadly” and “poisonous.” So, it’s not far-fetched to believe that encountering or touching mold could be dangerous. However, the connection between mold and your health is more ambiguous than you might think. And answering the question “how does mold effect your health” requires more than a one-sentence response.

RestoPros would like to provide Dallas/Ft. Worth homeowners insight about mold and its impact on their health. We recommend following this article to help acquire a better understanding of mold, preparing homeowners for a plan if it appears.

What is Mold?

Before we attempt to explain the health effects of mold, we must first understand what mold is. Mold is a type of fungus that grows in environments with warm, dark and humid conditions. It spawns and feeds off organic matter. Mold’s appearance varies on the species, but you’ll generally see it as stain-like with different shades of black, brown, yellow, green or blue. It can also appear fuzzy or as a slime.

With the abundance of trees, grass, and vegetation, mold is ubiquitous in nature. You can find mold on rotting trees, dead plants, and animal carcasses. There are over 100,000 species of mold that can work in tandem, meaning one instance of mold growth could contain several different species.

How Does Mold Effect Your Health?

Mold reproduces via spores. Essentially, these are the “seeds” of mold, which travel through the air to find a suitable location to plant themselves and initiate new mold growth. These spores hold the allergens and other contaminants that can make you sick. Symptoms could be runny nose, irritated eyes, chronic cough, headaches, and other allergenic responses. 

Along with spores, certain species of mold can also produce mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are small, toxic substances that can also cause symptoms of sickness and allergies if contacted.

We come in contact with mold spores and mycotoxins almost every day when going outside. So, if all the claims and rumors about mold’s health effects were true, we’d probably all be sick right now. However, considering the openness of the outdoors, mold spores and mycotoxins are so spread out that you’ll usually be safe being outdoors, provided you’re not constantly near mold.

But as the space becomes more confined, the more of a health impact mold can have. Mold spores and mycotoxins in tight spaces are now closer together and larger in quantity, meaning you have a higher chance of inhaling more of them. Therefore, having mold grow somewhere such as your home could possibly lead to negative health effects. And the adversity of these effects depends on factors such as the size of the mold infestation and the status of your own health.

Mold growth has been proven to cause worse symptoms for those with asthma or other respiratory conditions. For example, if you have a lung infection, mold can exacerbate the issue, increasing the severity of your systems. Additionally, those with weaker immune systems such as children or the elderly can also experience more severe symptoms from mold spores.

In Conclusion

Mold can have an effect on your health, but only under certain conditions. Although we recommend following safety precautions when mold has been identified in your home (contacting RestoPros for mold remediation services), you shouldn’t cower in fear upon the sight of a mold-infested plant or tree.

RestoPros is happy to inform Dallas/Ft. Worth homeowners about the possible effects mold can have on your health. And be sure to contact RestoPros for affordable mold remediation services if a mold infestation has appeared in your home. Give us a call at 855-587-3786 to get started.

Related Links

Basic Facts About Mold – CDC

Mold and IAQ (Indoor Air Quality)

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We all know mold can be damaging to our homes. But what happens if we inhale it? After all, mold is a type of fungus, and fungus can be full of bacteria and contaminants that would be dangerous to inhale. So, it’s not uncommon to wonder the possible effects of breathing in mold.

However, to answer this question, we must first find the correlation between mold and your IAQ (indoor air quality). The experts at RestoPros have been helping Dallas/Ft. Worth homeowners deal with the effects of mold for years; read below for our thoughts on how to approach spores in the air.

Can Mold Affect Your IAQ?

When mold has infested your home, it’s next objective is to reproduce. This is done by spawning mold spores that then travel through the air to find a new home. Once they’ve found a suitable place to grow, they attach themselves to the surface and begin “planting” new mold. With these spores traveling through the air, this creates a possible correlation between mold and IAQ.

So, can these mold spores affect your IAQ? The answer depends on amount of mold in your home. In small amounts, mold spores generally won’t have any effect on your IAQ, provided you clean it immediately.  The larger the infestation however, the more spores are produced. And with an abundance of spores in the air, your IAQ can be affected negatively.

This is due to the confined space of your home. Generally, mold spores don’t affect people as much outdoors. But within a tighter enclosure such as your home however, the allergens and irritants in the spores have a greater probability of contact. This can affect your IAQ, and trigger allergy symptoms as well as leading to sickness.

Spores aren’t the only way mold can affect you, however. Other molds, such as black mold, also produce mycotoxins. These are toxic substances that can also cause allergy triggers and sickness. But with the vast types of mold that can grow in your home, it would be useless to try and identify black mold. Therefore, it’s important to treat all mold the same.

What are the Effects of Breathing In Mold?

So, what happens if you inhale these mold spores or mycotoxins? Most of the time, it won’t be anything severe. You may experience allergy symptoms such as a runny nose, coughing, sinus headache, or other types of congestion.

However, these symptoms may increase in severity for those with weaker immune systems or an allergy to mold. Mold can be devasting if you have a condition such as a lung disease, as inhaling it can lead to a serious infection. Mold can also trigger asthma symptoms to those who suffer from the condition. Additionally, if you’re allergic to mold, the original symptoms can exacerbate. Therefore, it’s best for people with existing respiratory problems, weaker immune systems, and mold allergies to stay away from mold as much as possible.

It is important you know the correlation between mold and IAQ, as well as the effects of breathing mold. And if you have discovered mold infesting your home, contact RestoPros immediately. Give us a call at 855-587-3786 for affordable mold remediation services from Dallas/Ft. Worth’s leading experts.