Preventing mold in your bathroom is supposed to be easy, but sometimes your bathroom isn’t set up in the best way to prevent moisture build up. Sometimes extra steps have to be taken to avoid mold, but if you follow these, you shouldn’t have a problem. Mold builds up because moisture isn’t allowed to escape the room. If you have a small bathroom without a window, you know what it’s like to get out of a hot steamy shower and realize the walls are covered with a thin coat of water. These are the things that will cause mold to eventually take over your bathroom.

The first step to avoiding mold in your bathroom is a regularly scheduled good old fashioned scrubbing. Cleaning your bathroom regularly will help stir up any forgotten dust or dirt, and dry out any left over water left laying about. Your bathroom should be thoroughly cleaned once a month, with regular check ups once a week. Clean towels, and clean floor mats, means a healthier bathroom for all! Replacing your towels often seems like an obvious solution to keep mold out, but cleaning your bath mats should also be done regularly! Doing both once a week will make all the difference.

Another way to ensure that you’re avoiding mold in your bathroom is by making sure that not only are you using your fan every time your shower, but that you’re letting it run for up to 30 minutes after you are finished showering. This is important to keep it through the whole shower, but also afterwards so that it assists in drying the walls and shower quickly. 

Regrouting your shower is also a wonderful way to keep mold out. Once mold starts, it’s hard to kill, so doing this will keep mold from growing in between your shower tiles. Regrouting is also a nice way of sprucing up your bathroom! Whether you have grouted tiles or a plaster tub, using a squeegee will help remove leftover liquid from your shower. We recommend purchasing one to use on the walls alleviating some of the work your fan needs to do!
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The last way we can recommend keeping your bathroom mold-free is by removing shower items when not in use. Things that lay about in your shower are great breeding grounds for mold and other icky things. By keeping your shower clean and free of everything, you’re making sure that it’s also free of moisture!

Mold is a serious health risk, and shouldn’t be left to its own devices in your bathroom!  Keeping your bathroom clean and free of moisture is great for the whole family, and will help keep potential costs of redoing a bathroom down. These are just a couple of small ways you can avoid mold growth in your bathroom, but once you have it, it’s best to bring in a professional. If you suspect you have water leaking in your bathroom or some plumbing issues leading to mold growth, give Tony’s a call for a check up!

Water damage brings on a whole slew of issues in your home. Aside from the actual damage, and the costs associated with repair, what do you do about the potential hazards it has caused? It doesn’t take large amounts of water to create huge problems, because mold doesn’t take much moisture to blossom into a deadly unwanted fungi. You require some simple tools; fans, cleaners, and a few buckets of bleach.
Here are some simple yet extremely important steps to follow in the event you have even just minimal water damage in your home:

1. Get the water out as fast as you can. This is the most important part of the process, a wet/dry vacuum is possibly the most effective way to remove water in the home, and can be rented by various companies around the Twin Cities.
   
2. Increase airflow as much as possible. Fans can be used to speed up drying your carpets, and circulate fresh air in your home. Once you think those carpets are dry, keep the fans going, because they’re not. Even the most minimal moisture can enable mold to take root deep in your carpets and walls, so keep the fans on for at least another week post flood.
   
3. Turn that dehumidifier on high. This will help get all the moisture out of your home, but be prepared for cooler drier air for the time being. That just means the dehumidifier is doing its job and removing all excess moisture from the air.
   
4. Steam clean everything. Carpet padding will likely need to be replaced, but if you can save the carpet then you won’t have to re-do your entire home. A steam cleaner will deodorize and sanitize your home.
   
5. Sanitize everything. This part should be more self-explanatory. Use bleach and water to clean the baseboards and walls of the affected area to kill all residual mold spores.
   
6. Look over your furniture. Any furniture that was on wet flooring will need to be closely inspected and removed from the area until it can be dried and cleaned.
   

Water damage is easy to miss, so make sure that you’re closely inspecting every aspect of your home. The easiest way to prevent mold growth is by drying whatever water has accumulated in your home. The sooner the water is dry, the sooner you stop mold from spreading, under your carpet and in your insulation. Mold requires moisture to grow, and actively growing mold damages whatever it has decided to grow on. This can potentially damage the structural integrity of your home. If you’re not up for thoroughly cleaning up after water damage, hire someone, because this requires some heavy scrubbing.