The issue With Black Mold In Air Conditioners - And What To Do About It
Both Ac units and air ducts make great places for mold to hang out.
With Ac units, water leaks out of them and makes a nice place for mold. In these water pools mold grows, and then their spores are passed along straight through the ducts to every part of the house.
Your heating and cooling theory also can suck air out of different parts of the house. This means that mold can be passed all over the place, every which way, by your ventilation system.
The Hvac unit that sits outside your home is exquisite for mold, because there's always water around it. Mold often grows in the unit's water pools. The evaporator coil is also a major issue spot.
How Can You Tell?
First, there are the quarterly mold symptoms which normally look sinus trouble; runny nose, stuffy nose, and sinus headache. If you can smell mold when you turn on or run the Ac, you by all means; of course have a mold question there.
To make sure, you can always get a home testing kit from your hardware store. This might be a good idea anyway, and it can also tell you if the source of your mold troubles is your Ac unit.
Take the testing gear and check each room. Check around all the vents. Also, check around the unit itself outside, especially where there is any standing water.
What Can You Do?
If you have mold in your air ducts, it doesn't do much good to clean them. That's not just my opinion; that's what the Epa recommends. If you have mold in your ducts, it's symptomatic of a mold question elsewhere in the house, and until you address that, you won't make any progress on the mold.
For the Ac unit, you have to clean it on a quarterly basis to keep them mold free. Of course, you have to completely clean up any mold that you find around the unit, or in the petite pools of water around it.
In general, keep the fan mode switch on your Ac on "auto" mode. If you put it on "on," it will recirculate all that moisture that has collected on the evaporator coil straight through your house and air conditioning system. You don't want to raise the humidity level of your house; that will cause mold problems all over.
If you are construction a home or buying a new Ac unit, look for one that has options to operate the humidity. Some have changeable speeds, or different modes like "moisture removal." This will help greatly in controlling your house's mold.
Another tip on picking an Ac unit is that bigger machines normally growth humidity. For some reason, habitancy generally choose oversized Ac units for their homes. This is in fact not a wise choice, because a bigger unit will originate more moisture and circulate that moisture straight through your home.
If your heating and cooling theory is infested with mold, you will probably have to call a professional and have the whole house tested and remediated.
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