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Not a big deal at all. Once it's dried in, it will be fine. ALL houses constructed everywhere have a bit of mold on the framing until it's dried in and dried up.

First of all, I also don't think it's a big deal because it'll go away after it's dried in (maybe you can kill the mold with bleach before).

But, that's a LOT of mold for a short rain event. I had some wood framing out in the elements for more than 6 months and while the wood got a grey patina (like a wood fence), it for sure didn't grow mold like that...

I agree with the above posts in that there is a lot of mold but it isn't a big deal. A conscientious builder would probably at least clean it for you. The floor is designed to be wet but with a lot of standing water, my builder would usually dry it in some manner.

Bleach won't kill the mold. Use peroxide instead. Can be bought at a pool supply place.

"Bleach won't kill the mold. Use peroxide instead. Can be bought at a pool supply place."

Neither ill penetrate into the wood enough to do any good.

Every house is built outside in the weather until they are dried in.

they just about always get rained on.

It is not an issue worth worrying about.

Ditto what everyone else said, also they 'can't' replace the floors. All of the walls are 'on' the floor!

Glad I found this post.

I was walking through our build today and noticed mold on lots of the studs. It's not like the photo above...more like a light green hue and not raised.

So...there is nothing I can do for my peace of mind? How do you get rid of it? How does it just 'go away' with the house drying out? I thought that once mold got a stronghold, not much could be done?

Will it only go away if heat is applied? We live in very cold Alaska so there's not going to be any heat soon. We are shelled in and will do some things this winter but I don't think heat will be soon since we can't do the heat until we do the electrical/plumbing & sheetrock.

Thanks!

Heat isn't the issue with molds... moisture is. The very cold will likely put it into a dormant state too, but mostly if you get a nice dry winter (too cold to be moist), that will also stop it in its tracks (until it gets wet).

Mold/mildew is a part of nature. There are all kinds of things living all kinds of places...

Thanks, kirkhall.

So...if it's going to stay in the wood in some form, how do we protect ourselves and keep it from growing once it's covered with a vapor barrier & sheetrock? I hate the thought of mold spores lurking - just waiting for the chance to pop.

melaska - Make sure the framing is dried out before you sheetrock.

If you have to, bring in a heater after the outside sheathing is on and warm it up and dry it out.

Thanks, lazygardens...

Will it be ok if it's dry but the mold still shows? If bleach or peroxide don't work, what would you use? Does the visible mold have to be gone before we can cover it up?

Thanks!

I'd remove the visible mold just because. and then spray with a borax solution (inhibits mold growth--this will help keep those spores at bay you are worried about. bleach kills what is there, but you already will have taken care of that with the cold/dry winter. You want something that has lasting inhibitory power).

Thanks, kirkhall...so...I use bleach to remove the visible mold before spraying with the borax? What solution of bleach should I use? Thanks!

Water and Spic n Span/TSP is safer for you than bleach for removing the surface mold unless you are trying to make the wood lighter in color.

Alternatively, you can use borax in water to do the job in one step and dry the wood with fans to leave a borax residue. Mist the mold with water before removing it to prevent spreading spores.

Wear an N95 or N100 rated particulate mask like the Moldex 2730N100 series, eye protection, rubber gloves and protective clothing.

I am curious why the contractor is not willing to take responsibility for enclosing a house with standing water in it. Regardless of the degree of damage that resulted there is no excuse for this irresponsible action.

I don't have window sills installed yet either but the flashing prevents water intrusion at my house.

I thought the sill is cosmetic and water is taken care of by flashing ?!

"we have water pouring into the house and all the drywall is up."

Someone has really screwed up.

Drywall does not go up untill the house is 'dried in.'

Period.

Ever.

And if you really want mold and mildew to take off, heat the place with some torpedo heaters.

Between the warmth and the huge moisture injection form the heaters you can get mold to grow all over the framing.

This post was edited by brickeyee on Thu, May 2, 13 at 13:52

Very glad to have found this post. We are building a new timber frame house and the basement ceiling is complete - the exposed joists are Douglas Fir, and the ceiling is pine board. This was done as soon as the basement was completed, and then a layer of plywood was nailed overtop of the pine. When you look up from the basement you see exposed Fir beams and a pine ceiling.

Last weekend we had torrential rain (about 60 mm) and the entire basement ceiling was soaked through and dripping. We discovered yesterday that now where the Fir beams meet the pine, there is mold growing (!) and it's spreading over the pine! This mold has grown (and some of it already fuzzy) in one week.

The house is not yet closed in (no roof and still walls missing in some places, as this timber frame is taking a while to install). But what should we do about the mold right now? I'm worried it will destroy the pine in the ceiling as it's not something we can cover over with sheet rock once the house is closed up and dried out.

Our current plan is to:
a) wash visible mold with bleach or borax (I don't want bleach stains on the contrasting red Douglas fir)

b) seal up basement somewhat by sheeting stairway and window openings with plywood and running a commercial dehumidifier. This may not work well since the basement floor is not yet poured and it's still crushed stone.

I've read that the mold problem will take care of itself once the drying process is complete, but I don't want it to leave unsightly marks on my ceiling in the meantime! Help!

Just stick with the borax solution. You don't HAVE to use bleach.

threeapples - I was just curios if mold end up going away after the house was dried out? I'm in the process of new construction as well and it rained a little. though the sheathing and windows are all installed, it just sub-flooring got wet because the roof was not installed in one area. I see a little black spots of mold but was not sure if it is ok.

We had mold growing in our crawlspace due to inadequate perimeter drains and no vapor barrier on our new construction. We have engineered floor joists which made it a nightmare, but we were advised to do the following and it worked.

1) Do not use torpedo heaters - adds heat and moisture, which mold loves.

2) Do not spray wood down with bleach. It will not work long term and if it is warm and humid, adding more moisture does not help the wood.

3) Mold will go dormant in cooler temperatures and under 70% humidity. Install dehumidifers and keep at 65% for a couple weeks.

3) Keep checking the mold. Once it has turned powdery (this means it has gone dormant and withdrawn from the wood grain), vacuum it up with a hepa vacuum. (We wore those masks with the pink mold cartridges by 3M, tyvek paint suits and goggles.)

4) Apply Fiberlock Shockwave (fungicide and cleaner) in a pesticide sprayer (wear mask with organic vapor cartridges and goggles). Spray down the boards with a dilution of shockwave according to instructions. Spray walls, boards, everything.

5) Lay down vapor barrier - wrap up sides of walls, overlap seams 2 feet Keep space ventilated and dry (crawlspace vents with fans and dehumidifiers).

6) It was optional to apply Fiberlocks IAQ 6100, but it is very expensive, so we tried our luck without applying it. It is a clear mold inhibiting coating. We were told to never use the tinted or white because it immediately sets off new buyers that there is a mold problem.

We also installed new perimeter drains to keep the water out.

Following this advice has worked and we were able to save alot of money. I'm assuming the same thing would work in an above ground setting. Whatever you do, don't install insulation or drywall until the boards are dried out.

If you have a crawlspace mold issue, we received wonderful advice from and went with a system out of SC called Atmox. It has been working now for a year and we have no signs of mold. My husband installed the whole system and we used a dehumidifier from Lowes. It saved alot of money, made sense and is working.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fiberlock Shockwave

It has rained on our home too. Roof up, no tar paper just bear wood on exterior walls, no wrap. After reading this forum, i plan to watch & c what builder does. I am hoping dry out before anything else goes up. Sounds like a company that deals with mold would be a lot safer for us. We have an 8 yo Autistic boy & no family close by. Not sure if it would be an insurance problem if we have a license & bonded company do the work. Live in GA. It's November & the temps 75-85.

The OSB on the 2nd floors were already puffy & swollen with past rains. Now more rains.

The advice here scares me. (Bleach, and, the tinted and white stuff tip a new buyer off to an existent mold problem)

You can treat the wood with bleach and likely kill the surface mold. BUT, the spores (baby mold) is going to be there in mass, deeper into the material than the surface mold was. These spores are dormant, relatively harmless as long as humidity, darkness, and temperature do not all combine to cause another explosion of mold growth. (24-48 hours with the right temp/humidity/darkness is all it takes) BUT, the raw material spores are already built into your brand new home, just like the wiring and plumbing in the walls. This potentially deadly danger should not be. The danger is largely unnecessary and vastly avoidable.

Yes, the home, once dry, will have mold growth stop. But sensitive individuals are likely to experience problems with the existent dormant but very much alive - (by the millions or billions) - mold spores in the material. The spores are tiny. If the structure is not professionally, or at least knowledgeably, cleaned, treated, sealed, with any, if any suspect materials removed, before construction continues, it is an unsafe house.

People demanded trigger locks on guns to avoid potential injury from a loaded gun in an unknowing child's hands. Mold can be just as health threatening. Building the "loaded" spores into the walls ceilings floors, covered and hidden by unsafe protocol, until humidity triggers it's destructive growth explosion, is ignorant, at best. Only humidity is needed. ( a long rainy spell, water leak, moisture under foundation, window seals poorly installed...) because the darkness and temperature within the home are already conducive to spore growth.

Mold can be worse than a loaded gun, because it is hidden. Health problems are not obviously connected, by the untrained in mold diagnosis and treatment physicians, and the victim is left suffering with no remedy because nothing is diagnosed correctly.

Saying the home will be fine, may hold true, just as saying the loaded gun will be fine, the children won't see it where it is hidden and even if they do, they won't play with it.

250,000 dollars as a modest new home price... the construction protocol should mandate better best practice techniques to avoid the danger of rain on unprotected wood and no proper drying with subsequent mold remediation assessment by an expert in the field.

SHEETROCK, AND NO ROOF- Proper remediation MUST Occur. I would not knowingly touch that new home with anyone's money, remediation or not. That general contractor should stand up and say... sheet rock-big snafu, will pull all off, hire professional to properly treat whole house, replace all suspect materials and provide guarantee of no mold for so many years, with the number of insurer to cover this guarantee and number of my bonding agent.

Problem is, the Contractor cannot likely do that. So the house should become his house, Not Your House.

I have experienced loss due to mold and dirty building air, and have studied what it took to properly treat mold. Facts are, the treatment may not be successful, after thousands of dollars spent in the attempted remediation. A house marked mold treated cannot be simply, if at all, sold. Subsequent inspection passes must occur. The subsequent inspection will be several years out to insure as best possible, the house is safe. Home insurance policies often do not cover mold damage because they know the expense is great, the house treatment not guaranteed successfu,l and the subsequent health treatment can be more than the new home cost, in worse case scenarios. And, these worst cases do exist, more than the reader might think.

To those builders of moldy homes, that may flame my words. Okay, buck up, offer to pay ( in writing with a bond and insurance policy in effect) the home owner double purchase price, if mold shows problematic in the first 5 years of the new home ownership. To the home owners, buyer beware.

There are professional products for mold treatment, sanitation, and sealing the wood after treatment. I used "Molderizer", funny name but seems to work.

Greg B

I've been sick for 14 years because of a little bit of mold in my basement. I am chronically ill and disabled from mold....take any contamination very, very seriously.
If that was my house, I would burn it to the ground and start over.

Cara, why are you bringing up a 5 year old thread? This is different than having mold in your basement.

I just found this thread. I am currently building a house. The builder found mold growing in the basement drywall. We had an expert come in and it is not the dangerous mold but the builder agrees it needs to be removed. Who pays for this? My insurance company says they will not. Is this the responsibility of the builder? tO redo my basement could be $15k. Thanks

Thanks for the comment. We all agree it needs to go. Who is responsible? Owner or builder?

Builder.

I have to say… I was freaking out when I read the story and when I read the comments that people said it's no big deal just leave it it'll dry out and go away. And then all the bleach comments came.

I have been extremely ill with Lyme disease and Lyme and mold do not go well. I have not been able to get better due to mold in my home. So now I am having to leave a home I've been in for 20 years and it's been paid off 10 years ago.

You CAN N O T clean mold off boards with bleach! Bleach will only clean hard surfaces it will not penetrate. Vinegar will penetrate but I'm telling you if you don't have those boards removed and clean the air and make sure that you have done everything you can to remediate that mold it will eventually ruin your life. Granted I have a very weakened immune system so I feel these things a lot sooner and get sick a lot sooner. But give it a few years and you'll be wondering why you're ill and doctors will be clueless.

I warn everyone who is reading this to please take heed and do not turn your head at this mold. It is an extremely serious thing and it will do very bad things to your body. Some of which are irreversible. Please make the builder remove this I am aware that these posts were submitted quite some time before I'm able to say this but maybe somebody else will see it and it will help them because I have had to live in a tent, and in my truck for many months now and had to leave my home and everything in it. It is nothing to shrug your shoulders and say it will just go dormant and be OK. Granted it might go dormant and you might be OK for a while but the second you dig into that wood or stir it up or it gets wet again… They are just so many factors and it is there waiting to attack your body your brain your joints everything that makes you thrive and survive.

please don't play with this. Fix your home and fix it fast!

Mold in a house under construction is not at all the same and does not present at all the same risks as mold in an existing home. Mold needs moisture: deal with the moisture problem, and the mold dies off. In the case of a new build, mold may appear while the framing is open to the elements, but will disappear once the site is closed off, heating is turned on, and there is no more moisture. A house with persistent mold problems, on the other hand, necessarily has underlying moisture issues and killing off the mold is not the solution. Eliminate the source of moisture, and you eliminate the mold. Whether that requires improving drainage around the property, sealing off leaks, putting in dehumidifiers, etc, the source of the moisture has to be addressed because killing off the mold is simply a temporary fix. It's the moisture that needs to be dealt with.

I am going to copy this from an earlier post on the same subject...

Mold is one of those areas where there is a lot more misinformation than good information. Indoor molds are simply not that bad for you. The single study that found a connection between indoor mold and health problems was rescinded by the CDC when errors were found in the study. Since then hundreds of peer reviewed scientific studies have found no connection between indoor mold and health problems. The mycotoxins in indoor home environments simply don't approach harmful levels, and have really only been found in agricultural areas and buildings. In most of the country, indoor air tends to have fewer mold spores and mycotoxins than outdoor air. Feel free to look further into it, you can start here - http://users.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/soundscience/mold/gots1.html

Mostly, news and litigators exaggerated this story. This is not to say that mold should never be addressed, but it should be addressed in reasonable ways. Indoor molds may be problematic to those who already have a sensitivity to it, such as those allergic to mold and those with asthma, as an asthma sufferer I want to add, indoor environments are still better than outdoor, but you want your home to be as comfortable as possible, mold isn't really a problem for me personally, but dust and pollen can be.

Good luck.

Hi I just found this thread. My question may be a little different. I had gotten my house built in 2016. Moved in December of that year. I am experiencing surface mold on all things cloth, hanging in my closets I have a bedroom in the basement and there is mold on cloth items also I have a cloth couch in the family room with it on there as well. I need some help understanding why it's so bad, if it's harmful, how to clean it and keep it from not happening. Thank you for any advice you can give

HVAC and moisture managemen’t system for the basement. Moisture is getting in and isn’t being removed. Fresh air isn’t being circulated. Do you use your AC? Is there a proper ERV? What was the basement wall waterproofing system? It’s not working. Was a vapor barrier and insulation under the slab part of the build? It should have been. Are dehumidifiers and humidifiers part of your HVAC? A separate dehumidifier for the basement?

Look st the waterproofing documents from the build. Then get a HVAC specialist in.

Sophie is right, and also: get yourself a moisture meter and check your indoor humidity levels. Should be well below 50%. Buy a dehumidifier, or two.

Always use a good bathroom exhaust fan when showering, cover all boiling water when cooking, make sure your range hood is powerful and venting to the outside.

"You opened up houzz AND yourself to Huge liability on this one."

First post, liking your own first post, digging up an old post for zero reasoning, why?

I read your comments as a “pro” at water damage mitigation.[...] What were the air sample results for: moisture? Bacteria? Types and quantities of various molds present? [...] Sick/dead babies, children, adults, pets, etc. are no fun. That is exactly what you get when you follow your reckless advice given at the very beginning and throughout this forum.

I take the above statements as nothing more than proof positive that those who exploit misinformation for financial gain will protect their turf. There are not many areas in this country where even serious indoor mold problems approach outdoor mold problems. If you live in a place where grass grows either naturally or through irrigation systems the mold mycotoxins outside your house will probably be greater than the ones inside your house. The amount of growth medium present in your yard is exponentially greater than what is present in your home. An acre of land will contain between 300 million and 600 million blades of grass which will produce something between 120,000 and 600,000 pounds of mold growth media per year.

Relatively speaking, most houses are simply an island of tranquility in a sea of mycotoxins. Take your mold measurements outside when you are doing your "pro" sales call and measure outdoor environments over a spring, summer and fall. Let's see how bad those houses are.

You opened up houzz AND yourself to Huge liability on this one.

I read this comment as a "pro" at liability. Where is the duty? You are trying to sell the idea that a "pro" designation creates a duty to anyone reading a thread. Find some precedent for that because there is a mountain of precedent that an overheard conversation doesn't create a precedent nor does anonymous advice. Furthermore, you should read the terms of use agreement before you start giving legal advice here.

We bought a large lot waterfront lot with a house built to lock up 10 years ago on an island off the coast of Vancouver BC. (No electricity, plumbing etc.) It is 3 stories, has a roof and all the windows, but the siding is just particle board and some vinyl, so two areas have rotted and need to be replaced, as does that particle board siding. What I'm most nervous about is the basement floor was never poured. How would you recommend I guarantee mold hasn't and won't grow once we replace the two rotted parts, redo the outside (with a layer of insulation on the outside and proper enveloping) and pour the floor? If I can save all the labour and wood already put into this safely, I would like to. Thanks.

I want to know who to contact to help us determine the cause of the mold. Our house is only 2 years old. We did not have this problem before until March of 2021

Do we contact the AC installer, the builder, or someone who inspects foundation?

Where is the evidence of mold growth in your home? Photos would be helpful. It would also be helpful to know your location/climate zone.

" I can only imagine how stressful it must be to encounter issues with your new home construction, especially as first-time homeowners. Dealing with water damage and potential mold growth can definitely put a damper on the excitement of building your dream home. "

Should be interesting to see what spam gets added in here!