Mold Control for HVAC and Facilities: A Follow-Up
In early November we began our Post-Hurricane Sandy Series discussing mold control for HVAC and facilities.
Mold control is not an issue to be taken lightly, as we’ve told you previously. There are adverse health effects to mold exposure. And some people are more sensitive than others, particularly if they already have allergies, asthma or chronic lung diseases.
There’s also a financial component to mold since its growth can ruin business assets in your building. Mold can grow on floors, walls and other surfaces, as well as within an HVAC system.
Drips pans, pipes and anywhere else the system provides a reservoir for moisture is susceptible to mold growth. If mold exists within the system, the spores can be dispersed when the system is turned on.
But mold is an ongoing issue and prevention is the key. While we may need to address it immediately after a business has been flooded, or otherwise exposed to massive amounts of water, mold is always found within our buildings.
In fact, OSHA says mold is “part of the natural environment.” It’s found anywhere, both inside and outside. There are 1,000 species of mold in the United States and more then 100,000 species worldwide.
Mold can grow on just about any substance as long as moisture/water, oxygen and an organic source exist. Mold spores are always floating through the air. They usually don’t cause any problems until they land on a moist spot and begin growing.
Mold growth will occur if you don’t take care of the moisture. It’s impossible to completely eliminate all mold and mold spores, but controlling moisture does inhibit mold growth.
OSHA recommends preventing excessive moisture in your building. Potential sources of moisture include roof leaks, landscaping/gutters, which direct water into or under the building, unvented combustion appliances and inadequate building maintenance, including on the HVAC system.
OSHA offers the following mold prevention tips:
- Repair plumbing leaks and leaks within the building structure immediately
- Look for condensation and wet areas and repair sources of moisture problems immediately
- Keep HVAC drip pans clean and unobstructed so any water or moisture flows properly
- Perform regular building/HVAC maintenance, including filter changes
- Keep the indoor relative humidity below 70% (25% – 60% is ideal)
- Vent moisture-generating appliances outside
- Vent kitchens and bathrooms appropriately, following local code requirements
- Clean and dry wet/damp spots immediately, and no longer than 48 hours after you discover the moisture
- Identify the cause of leaks and take action to ensure the leak doesn’t happen again
Fortunately, Goodway has products to clean both surfaces and HVAC systems affected by mold, as well as products that inhibit mold growth.
For HVAC use, our MoldTek Mold & Mildew Cleaner & Disinfectant is a ready-to-use cleaner effective at killing mold on non-porous surfaces such as HVAC coils and ducts.
CoilShine-BC Mold and Mildew Inhibitor is a commercial grade, EPA-registered, ready-to-use treatment that inhibits mold growth. It can be applied to coils, ducts, drain pains and other components, and it’s formulated for use in sprayers.
FreshDuct Odor Eliminator controls the odor left behind by mold and mildew. It’s non-toxic and biodegradable, destroys odor molecules on contact, and leaves your ducts smelling fresh.
For floors and other surfaces, we also recommend MoldTek Mold & Mildew Cleaner & Disinfectant. In addition to HVAC components, it’s formulated for use on floors, walls, and other surfaces.
MoldTek-MT Mold Growth Control & Inhibitor, our EPA-registered mildewstat and fungistat, is specially formulated to inhibit mold and mildew growth on floors, walls and other hard surfaces. And because it’s labeled for use in occupied spaces, no evacuation is necessary during the clean-up process.
Next Steps:
- Read: HVAC Maintenance and Floods: Help With Disaster Recovery
- Read: Mold: A Common HVAC Complaint That Is Easy To Deal With
- Subscribe to our blog to receive the full blog series via email and stay informed about the latest HVAC news and insight.
- Stay up to date on facility maintenance tools such as chiller tube cleaners, boiler tube cleaners, hose/pipe cleaners, descaler systems, industrial vacuums, commercial pressure washers, and drain cleaners.
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HVAC Security: Is Your Facility Prepared?
HVAC systems are vulnerable to accidental or intentional biological and chemical threats due to their complexity.
Just as an HVAC system spreads air, it can spread contaminants – and air intakes can introduce toxic chemicals. As Facilitiesnet explains, a terrorist attack is one potential source of airborne chemical or biological attack, but accidental incidents pose just as serious – and probably more likely – risks.
HVAC security attacks can include terrorist or criminal activity, fires, natural disasters or riots, but they can also include bacteria, viruses, mold and chemical fumes from VOCs, smoke, asbestos and carbon dioxide.
According to the EPA, common biological contaminants include mold, mildew, viruses, bacteria or even the droppings from rodents, cockroaches or other pests. HVAC systems can harbor such contaminants and distribute them. Some diseases, including humidifier fever – a respiratory infection – can result from microorganism growth in building ventilation systems.
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HVAC Coil Corrosion: Should You Be Concerned?
Coil corrosion is an expensive problem in the HVAC industry, leading to coil replacement or entire system replacement. Corrosion results in failure, and is responsible for about 40% of equipment failures in industrial applications, according to CED Engineering.
As the authors of an article in Reliable Plant explain, coil corrosion comes in the form of either pitting or formicary deterioration. Corrosion may occur as quickly as a few weeks after an installation or it may take up to four years to present itself.
Pitting corrosion is most often caused by exposure to fluoride or chloride. Fluoride is present in municipal water supplies, while chloride is found in a variety of products including snow melt, detergents, cleaners, carpeting and fabrics. Pitting occurs when chloride or fluoride ions are transported to the metal via condensate. The ions attack the metal, forming pits that form pinholes, causing the coils to leak refrigerant.
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3 Steps to Revamp Your HVAC Preventative Maintenance Plan
Our HVAC Maintenance Checklist is another of our blog’s most popular posts, and this follow-up ends the series for “Top Posts” (since the blog started in 2008).
In the previous HVAC maintenance checklist post we pointed to the Buildings magazine article, “Revamp Your Preventative Maintenance for 2009.” Even though it’s three years later, the information is as relevant as ever. The magazine recommends focusing on three steps in laying out a preventative maintenance program: inventory and inspection; preventative maintenance program software; and employee involvement.
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Top Ways to Diagnose Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Problems
Despite national attention on poor indoor air quality (IAQ), it’s still a problem affecting facilities and its occupants. Building owners who want to successfully combat poor indoor air quality, must ensure that their building managers and hired contractors understand IAQ and know how to address any problems that arise.
The Indoor Air Quality Building Education and Assessment Model (I-BEAM) is the EPA’s guidance tool for building professionals. It teaches you how to improve air quality and how to conduct an indoor air quality inspection. I-BEAM provides a set of forms to aid in diagnosing and solving air quality issues.
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Preparing Your Restaurant’s HVAC System for the Summer Heat
It’s never too early to start preparing your restaurant’s or other food and beverage facility’s air conditioning unit for the upcoming summer months.
With the arrival of the unseasonably warm spring in many areas of the country this year, early preparation of your restaurant’s or food and beverage facility’s HVAC system is crucial to ensure that it’s working properly. With temperatures reaching the low 80s, many eateries and food and beverage facilities have been forced to turn on their air conditioning systems without having properly prepared them after a long winter of inactivity.
Preparing your HVAC system is important for any season, but the summer months can put additional stress on systems that are not maintained properly. Spring is the best time, as well as the most traditional time to prepare your air conditioning unit for the hot weather.
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Seven Ways to Prevent Mold-Related Problems in your Building or Facility
At times, HVAC professionals must deal with mold and mildew. Those tiny, lightweight spores traveling through the air need moisture and the right temperatures to grow and turn into unsightly and foul smelling organisms that can eat away at fabric and other surfaces and can be detrimental to your health. If these microorganisms proliferate in buildings, they can adversely impact indoor air quality (IAQ), create hazardous health conditions for the occupants and contribute to the deterioration of building components.
To clear up confusion: mold and mildew are terms that describe fungi. Mildew – often thin and black, dark blue/green or sometimes white – can grow into mold. A single spore can germinate and grow into a colony the size of a quarter or half dollar in a few days or weeks.
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Top 10 HVAC Maintenance Posts of 2011 from the Just Venting Blog
Today, we’re bringing you a rewind of the most popular HVAC maintenance posts of 2011. Enjoy these reader favorites from the Just Venting blog as the year winds down.
Number 10 – Dust & Soot Vacuums Are More Versatile Than You Might Think
Our 10th most popular post for 2011 is a good reminder that sometimes certain jobs require specialized tools. In this instance, when you are using tools that emit particles such as sawdust, concrete or particle dust, a specialized vacuum can really clean up the mess and protect the air. This guide gives you some food-for-thought on which vacuum to use when.
Number 9 – How to Prevent Legionnaires Disease via Cooling Tower Cleaning
This past year marked the 35th anniversary of an outbreak of pneumonia among people attending a convention of the American Legion at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia and also the first reported incident of Legionnaires Disease. The source of the infection was determined to be the hotel’s air conditioning system cooling tower. When the normally present bacteria became airborne, it can cause illness in the elderly and people with compromised immune systems. This is exactly what happened that fateful day 35 years ago. This tutorial walks you through the best prevention methods for your facility.
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HVAC Preventative Maintenance Critical Components: Attention To Detail
We’ve mentioned before, and we think everyone can agree, that preventative maintenance (PM) programs for HVAC systems are essential. This post is the first in a series that will cover what I call “critical components” — processes or physical items that are must-haves for your PM program. As part of my responsibilities for a new job, I am now in several different facilities on a weekly basis and certain things have jumped out at me as issues from the viewpoint of a Facility Manager. I’ve decided to use these observations as a launching point for this series.
Today I am focusing on attention to detail. Logically, you might imagine this to be a matter of course, but in the majority of the facilities I have recently visited, it is a glaring deficiency. Pumps and boilers are offline with no evidence of lockout-tagout. A power supply burst into flames because there was no consistent coloring or numbering scheme for the wires, and one landed in the wrong spot. A box of new air filters was sitting by an open window with the rain coming in. All these issues could be easily avoided, but they weren’t because no one paid attention to the job from start to finish.
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How to Develop or Update a Facility Maintenance Program, Part 2
In a previous post, we here at Goodway encouraged you to think differently about the facility maintenance planning process and described how to determine critical ranking for various equipment covered by a facility maintenance program. Once you have determined rank, you need to assess your direct impact and safety/environmental items. These all need to be on a regular maintenance schedule, so you need to decide a couple of things at this point: a) how often should we perform maintenance on this equipment, and b) do we do this in-house or do we contract it out?
There are a couple of ways to go on maintenance frequencies. If you don’t have historical data or institutional knowledge, refer to OEM specifications. The challenge with using this method is that sometimes the specs are written to lead to failures at the end of equipment life cycle. The other problem is that maintenance practices are vastly different now than they were in the past, and some specified maintenance routines could be outdated. If you can rely on historical data, you are much better off and will probably be able to document the reliability limits for any piece of equipment in your inventory. Consider these avenues: a CMMS program, written maintenance records or the memory of an old-timer.
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