How To Clean Mold From Wood Floors

How to Make clean Mold on Wood Flooring

• POST a QUESTION or COMMENT about mold contamination on edifice floors and in floor coverings or flooring materials

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This article offers advice on cleaning mold found on wood flooring, both when the flooring is already installed in a edifice and when woods flooring materials have non still been installed in identify.

We discuss the pros and cons of using fungicidal sealants and bleach on wood floor product surfaces including the under-side every bit a mold-resistance add-on, and give sources and listing types of those products.

We too discuss common errors made when cleaning wood surfaces, such as relying on bleach or performing expensive and unnecessary cleaning on corrective black mold on wood surfaces.

Nosotros besides provide an ARTICLE Alphabetize for this topic, or you tin can try the page peak or bottom SEARCH BOX as a quick way to find data you lot need.

Guide to Cleaning Mold off of Wood Flooring

at left our photograph shows white and black mold on the surface of hardwood flooring. Information technology may be possible to sand, clean, and re-finish this floor, just some exploration volition exist needed:

1. What caused this mold growth on flooring, and has the leak or wet trouble been corrected?
2. Is there a risk of hidden mold between layers of floor and if and then, will that exist a wellness or mold growth risk in the edifice?
3. Does the mold growth on this floor indicate that the flooring is rotted and needs replacement, or tin can the mold exist cleaned off and the floor remain in utilize?

Our page pinnacle photo shows black mold on an oak strip floor near an leave door. Sanding or bleaching this mold won't fix anything - nosotros need to find and fix the leak that caused this floor to rot, and because the floor is rotted, information technology needs to be replaced.

Simply often surface mold on forest flooring, new or installed in a building, can be easily cleaned and time to come mold growth prevented, as nosotros draw here.

Question: How practise I clean mold off of oak flooring that has not yet been installed?

I accept recently found some used quarter sawn oak 3/iv" tongue and groove flooring for sale. Upon further inspection, many of the pieces announced to have a white powder film on the finished side of the strips and besides black mold on the back sides where is it grooved and unfinished.

Of form information technology is existence sold at an incredible price, but I am concerned about the likeliness I will non be able to clean it properly. I volition add together that I volition be gluing it down to physical.

Is there annihilation I can practice myself to insure proper elimination of the mold? - Jamie Longfellow, Tallahassee, FL

Answer: Physically Clean Moldy Wood Surfaces, Dry The Woods Flooring Earlier Installation

Hither nosotros are discussing cleaning mold off of woods flooring products that take non yet been installed in a building. If your concern is with mold on the visible surfaces of wood flooring already installed in a building, or on the under-side of woods flooring or subflooring already installed in a building, the woods surface cleaning discussed here still applies, merely yous should as well see HIDDEN MOLD in FLOOR / SUB-FLOOR. Likewise see MOLD CLEANUP - WOOD FRAMING & PLYWOOD where nosotros describe methods for cleaning wood surfaces in general.

Without a mold lab examination (for example using the agglutinative tape mold sample process at TEST KIT for DUST, MOLD, PARTICLES: INSTRUCTIONS) we don't know from the moldy floor question above if you lot are seeing mold or something else on soiled wood flooring, but information technology is reasonable to guess that a substance is mold based on its concrete appearance (see MOLD Appearance - WHAT MOLD LOOKS Similar), especially if the flooring has been exposed to water, moisture conditions, or high humidity.

Except where major costs are at issue that would be effected by a determination of the type of material or mold present, or where there are other reasons to examination for mold, in our opinion testing is not necessary for small-scale mold cleanup jobs (less than xxx sq.ft. of contiguous mold on a edifice surface). For help in deciding if it is appropriate to test for mold, see Reasons to Test for or Identify Mold and see MOLD / Ecology Expert, Rent ?.

In any case you lot can physically clean the surfaces to remove the mold. Physically cleaning means wiping, scrubbing with a scrubby sponge and whatever household cleaner. Don't waste money or time with mold killing washes, information technology'southward not necessary, and using bleach or similar agents tin can create a corrective problem or a problem with future adhesion of finish coatings on the flooring upper surface after installation.

Clean the forest flooring outside in dry weather, or in an appropriate indoor workshop where air, dust, and perhaps moldy dust containment can be managed or won't exist a trouble. Don't bring moldy forest flooring into its destination building until the flooring has been cleaned, or you hazard contaminating the building with moldy dust. See MOLD CLEANUP - Rubber WARNINGS.

Picket out:  be sure that your forest flooring has stale properly before it is installed or flooring shrinkage, gaps, or even more serious problems may occur. The forest should be beneath 18% moisture before any coatings are applied, and it should exist thoroughly acclimated to the building interior where it is to exist installed earlier it is secured in place. This tin mean storing the wood in the destination building for days or longer before it is installed. Encounter DRY THE MOLD-CLEANED SURFACE.

Our wood floor photo to a higher place shows a mold-free wood floor but its boards are cupped upwards (convex forest floor board cupping), suggesting that there was a trouble moisture source above the flooring (such as a burst piping or flooding). Imagine that a wood floor lath that has been more wet on 1 side than the other, equally it dries, tends to be more expanded on the "wet" side - so will curve towards that side, while the more dry out side will tend to be less expanded - then volition curve away from the more dry side. Surely there are exceptions, but this general dominion on the diagnosis of woods floor cupping oft holds. More details are at Wood FLOOR DAMAGE and at MOISTURE Command in BUILDINGS.

At correct our wet meter is measuring the wet level of a different wood floor, showing that the wet is in the danger zone for forming mold, rot, insect damage, and floorboard cupping.

Leaving Stains on Some Wood Surfaces is Harmless, or of Cosmetic Significance Just

If an exposed floor surface remains stained even afterwards surface mold has been removed, you volition need to sand that surface - a pace typically performed later on the flooring has been installed.

While in general nosotros recommend against using bleach as a substitute for proper mold cleanups (MOLD CLEANUP with BLEACH) we take successfully used bleach (with corking care) to remove stains in wood floors before re-finishing the exposed forest surface. Be sure that all bleach or any other cleaning has been thoroughly removed before re-finishing a floor.

Media blasting (MOLD CLEANUP past MEDIA Diggings) tin also produce a very clean wood surface with minimum harm to the woods. Merely exist conscientious: inexpert apply of any ability-blasting or ability washing method for cleaning wood can leave a raised wood grain and a very uneven surface that would be unacceptable for finishing on an interior wood flooring surface.

Stains that might remain on the floor underside volition be of no cosmetic import and as long as the flooring is installed indoors and not exposed to water or high moisture, mold growth should non exist a problem.

Blanket the Under-Side of Woods Flooring to Meliorate Mold Resistance & Moisture Resistance Before Installation

If nonetheless you want to accept steps for actress "mold proofing" you can, afterwards cleaning and drying the wood, coat the underside with a fungicidal sealant, or even with uncomplicated quick dry shellac or a lacquer primer-sealer paint. The top flooring surface will exist finished and sealed subsequently installation unless you are dealing with a pre-finished floor product.

DISINFECTANTS & SANITIZERS, SOURCES lists some sealant products

and FUNGICIDAL SPRAY & SEALANT USE GUIDE discusses warnings about using sealants on mold cleanup jobs (don't use a sealant as a substitute for actual cleaning).

What about mold on pre-finished or already-finished forest flooring?

If the exposed (upper) surface of the floor material is moldy and if mold stains have penetrated the actual coating, for cosmetic reasons you'd need to sand through the coating and through the stain until the wood advent is satisfactory.

Spotter out: often mold-stains penetrate rather securely into wood materials. While the stain does not itself signify an increased risk of future mold re-growth, its appearance may be unacceptable. Only deep stains tin require removal of quite a bit of wood surface - something that can exist a problem in wood floor, and in detail if the flooring is a Vee-grooved pre-finished product.

Sanding Vee-Grooved Pre-Finished Flooring to Remove Mold?

V-grooved pre-finished flooring is not intended to ever be sanded, and if you exercise sand it, the upshot will exist uneven removal of material and then that the Vee-grooves are no longer consistent, ruining the finished flooring appearance. In that instance you'd take to fully sand the floor until it has become totally smooth before it can exist re-finished.

Reader Comments & Q&A

Question: tannin-acquired stains in oak flooring vs mold

(Nov 16, 2012) Michael Rowzee said:
Oak woods contains tannin. When oak becomes wet, some of the tannin will leach to the surface every bit the wood dries. Tannin is dark grey. Where nails or other iron is present, the fe and tannin leaves an even darker stain. Tannin is non mold nor is it humus, the black material left behind when mold is removed from wood. The photo at the top of this folio (with a floor register in the photo) is a good example of a tannin-caused stain. If the stain isn't too deep, information technology may be lightened with sodium hypochlorite (bleach). One application of hypochlorite may not be enough.

Answer:

Thanks for the comment, Michael.

Merely in this case you are mistaken. We establish the post-obit at the location of the stained wood floor at page top

A long history of water leaks at the wall and door threshold, rotted threshold
The floor and subfloor were concave in the room and sverely rotted below
The wood framing, subfloor, and insulation in the crawl surface area below this stain was a mold palace needing cleanup

Manifestly owners hired a floor refinisher who just did what flooring refinishers exercise.

I agree completely that there tin be wood stains that are not mold themselves, and that they tin can be harmless themselves and I also agree that mold panic is itself a costly problem.

But in this case the stain proved very of import, leading to hidden damage, triggered gy noticing that someone had merely put poly over rotted moldy forest.

Indeed for stained floors that were non rotted, I too have successfully bleached out the stain as function of the renovation.

Thanks again. I think we need some science and authoritative citations about the makeup pf some wood stain marks. Certainly in our forensic lab I have often confirmed that information technology was fungal hyphae remaining in the wood that made upwards dark stains. For now, if nosotros dissect and written report a stain that is free of fungal cloth I'll consider your tannin remark a bully alternative explanation. But as well meanwhile, let's not assume all black stains atr tannins - many are mold that tin even be identified to genera and frequently to species.

Question: crusade of white flower under floor finish

(June 15, 2014) Anonymous said:
What I take is white on hardwood floor non certain if it mold or not but wiping with water had not gotten it upwardly.

Reply:

White bloom under the finish of a hardwood floor won't wipe-off and is commonly a sign of moisture. Information technology could be that the floor was damp when finished or there could be a current moisture source below the floor.

Question:

(Oct 14, 2014) Maureen said:
I have a white film appearing on recently oiled floorboards in a very one-time business firm which has an unaccessible basement which is vented, is this damp as there is a well in the garden and wondering if it travels nether house?

The white motion-picture show on floorboards I have wipes off easily but reappears after a couple of weeks.

Reply:

This may be a fungal growth

- look for a moisture source.

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