Inner Walls Conversation
I often say this to customers and technicians I train. “The fog is amazing, but it is not magic. It has limitations, yet it also usually exceeds what the logical mind can process.” It's kind of like a garage door opener. It boggles my mind how you can be a block away, and send a signal that then bounces off of other particles, (in all directions by the way) and eventually tells the garage door opener to engage. I can't wrap my brain around that on the nano level.
Along those same lines, it's hard to understand the power of oxidation and the associated vapor pressure of PAA. I understand that it literally tears the molecular bonds of a cell apart. I know it works, but I can only very simply explain that there is an outer membrane that falls apart, and an electron is exchanged. The reason I mention all of this is to note that there are things that we don't truly know why or how they work. They just do. I was on the phone with someone in Australia yesterday, and the comment was this, "Even the brightest chemical and biological minds in the world do not truly know why PAA works or exactly what it does to the microbe.”
For years I would fog homes, discussing with the customer the areas of concern i.e. water intrusion, and fog the home without worrying about the interior of the wall. Then the more I second guessed myself, I began "popping" small holes into the walls of concern, then simply repairing the small holes with spackle and we were good. Usually, I would place two or three holes between each stud. I really did not notice a difference between results with or without holes. I have often told customers, I have never had to come back and re-fog a home because I forgot to poke holes. We still worried about the complete efficacy of the product within the walls, We knew the vapor will flow through baseboards, through electrical outlets, etc, and In general, we have lived by the motto that wherever the mold spores can travel, we can travel that same route easier and further, with the vapor. This is due to the vapor particle being so much smaller than a mold spore, and the vapor pressure pushing it into places a spore could not go. I believe for 95 jobs out of 100 this applies. It's that other 5 out of 100 that we felt we needed more intrusion into the wall. We came up with the pump (accelerator), to pump the vapor into the cavity. Albeit hokey, it works. Having said all of this, I still have thoughts on the inner wall conundrum. My thoughts are as follows:
1. If there are serious concerns about a particular wall, being more aggressive and cutting out larger pieces of sheetrock is a very good option.
2. Unless the sheetrock is cut, we don't truly know the soil load and the overall mold load inside that wall. In other words, has it colonized to the point of mold on top of dirt on top of mycelium, on top of hyphae, on top of spores, etc etc. If this is the case, I fear we likely don't get enough vapor into the walls to get a complete kill. I believe these are rare instances, but they exist. I also believe that if it has progressed this far, there will be signs of serious water damage, and we will undoubtedly want to further investigate. PAA vapor is the very best product relative to fighting through soil load, and fighting through those barriers, but we still may have issues. The good news is that in most cases, the after tests will show that there still are some issues and further inspection and remediation will be in order.
3. The environment of the interior wall space is very different from the interior of the house. It is another reason we came up with the accelerator, since mechanically injecting vapor would at least address inner walls that had positive pressure relative to the interior of the home. We also don’t know if the interior of the wall space air ends up inside the home, stays stagnant, or escapes to the outside. Each home will vary.
4. We often don’t know if it is truly dried out inside of that wall? I've been fooled more than once by a wall that seemingly measures dry on the surface of the drywall, only to find that the cement and the studs are still wet. This will compromise the treatment, as you know. Again, the good news is that the after tests will typically fail, if there are still water issues.
5. I have fogged a lot of homes, in which the customer felt better and was very happy with the service and then they tore out a wall and were exposed to mold. I believe there may be some sort of "sealing" effect in a lot of cases, although I am losing my confidence in this theory. I do know for a fact that if you apply Tryhydroxilpropyldimethyloctadecyl ammonium chloride (Goldshield5) to an indicator strip, it will not turn black when exposed to PAA. So the silane does seal. Does it seal enough to seal away mold? That theory may be a stretch. Additionally, and I certainly don't know this for a fact. It may be more realistic that the mold inside of the wall was not the cause of the illness, and we killed other mold or bacteria elsewhere in the home, and that is why they felt better. (Is it possible that in some cases the mold inside the wall vents to the outside, much like an attic vents up and out?) No way of knowing, without really digging into each circumstance, and it’s often more affordable for the customer to just fog, and see how the tests come back. There is also likely something to the possibility that it was other mold or bacteria that made them sick. It is common knowledge that one type of mold will emit toxins when it senses another type of mold and or bacteria. Did we, by fogging the home, eliminate one type of mold and or bacteria, so the mold in the wall no longer was in defense mode and emits toxins?
The number of cases of the wall not being completely dried out, and thus compromising the treatment is likely far more common than a case of not getting enough fog or vapor into the wall cavity.
And finally, I truly feel that the "mold load" of a home, from the various "mold factories" is far more harmful than a patch of mold on sheetrock inside a wall. I am not discounting the need to get to the bottom of this, but I often have to laugh at remediators that claim they took care of the mold in the home because they removed a 2 foot by 1 foot piece of sheetrock. Meanwhile, there are trillions upon trillions of mold spores inside of the drains, window sills, front loading washing machines, etc etc. The real magic of the treatment is "whole home", and reducing the microbial load to reasonable levels. Hope this gives a little perspective.
