Black Mold Disaster

Treating Black Mold on Tongue and Groove

Last week, Gary started to install the tongue and groove in the ceiling of the entryway. About the third row down (in the pile of wood) he noticed black mold on one of the boards. He put the board aside, and reached for the next one. It also had black mold on it. He knew that black mold is a very bad thing to put into a home. We remember an episode of "Extreme Home Makeover" where a family had to leave their home due to black mold. Gary continued to search through the pile of boards and found more infected boards. After going through the entire pile, he was only able to save about 10% of the boards. Even when he wasn't sure if a board contained black mold, or if it was just a black "character mark" on the board, he laid it aside. Then Debi started to do research on the internet about ways to treat black mold. Gary also contacted our log manufacturer to ask them their opinion. (We need to insert here that it was our fault that the wood got wet--not the manufacturer. We saw the cover on the pile of tongue and groove flapping in the breeze, and didn't think anything of it. If anything, we thought that is water got on the boards, they would warp. We never imagined that black mold would be a problem.) The wood has been sitting outside (wrapped and covered--except for that corner flapping in the breeze) since October 2008, and the first time we opened the wrapping was last week.

After speaking with our log home manufacturer to get their ideas for eliminating the black mold on the tongue and groove, Debi mixed three parts water with one part bleach and used a sprayer to coat the boards. She wore gloves and a mask to avoid any mold contamination. She let the solution sit on the boards for about 10 minutes and then wiped each one with paper towels. We read that it was important to not use a cloth that would cross-contaminant the other boards, so after each swipe of the paper towel, it was thrown away. Then the board was turned over and the process was repeated. Next, the boards were stacked (with spacers in between each board) and left outside to dry in the hot desert sun. The process was time-consuming, but it worked!
This is a sample of the type of mold Debi had to deal with last Memorial Day weekend. She has treated about 1/7th of the pile of boards. Now that school is over for the year, she will be using several days of her summer vacation to finish the project.
Here's another sample of the black mold. These were some of the worst boards. Most of the boards weren't this badly damaged. Gary has already been able to use some of the salvaged wood on the walls.

Our next post will show how the tongue and groove has been installed in the entryway. It looks like this "Black Mold Disaster" will just be an inconvenience, and that we will be able to use all the boards after all.