Almost every house has an attic and it’s primarily used to store some old items we care about or just stuff we do not know what to do with or we just don’t have the heart to throw them away. Be it as it may, due to the fact that this part of a house is rarely visited or even cleaned or aired it is very much likely that some problems like a hidden slab leak might occur and cause unnecessary trouble even before you notice anything.
One of those annoying pests is mold. The best way to deal with mold is by preventing it and understanding how and why it has started to appear. If the infestation is left unchecked, it can spread across your home, by which time the only way to remove the mold is to hire an expert.
In order to avoid costly repairs that are often necessary with mold removal, it shouldn’t be too much of a trouble to take some time to do inspections on a regular basis, and there are things you need to be on a lookout for.
Roof Leaks
This sort of problem could be difficult to notice, especially if you don’t have a habit of checking your roof. The sneaky nature of roof leaks does not necessarily mean that you will see any damage inside the house. Instead, your attic will suffer most of it and all the water and debris just might end up there causing various problems which only might get bigger.
In order to prevent all this, you need to focus on having regular inspections. That time and effort will surely pay off when you realize how much damage and costs you prevented just by being careful.
Ventilation
Problems with ventilation might occur during the winter when you try to close all possible leaks where air might flow to prevent any cold from entering your home, to save energy you use for heating. This is a double-edged sword because this warm and stale air is a perfect breeding ground for mold.
It is very important that your attic stays ventilated and cool during the winter, even if you use it only as a storage and rarely visit.
Heating appliances
This goes for water heaters and furnaces because people usually keep them in the attic. Why are they potentially problematic? Well, they both can contribute to increased levels of humidity, which combined with warmth creates a nice little incubator of a sort of mold growth. You don’t need to move them from the attic, but a professional checkup for leaks will suffice.
Ice blocking
Again, during the winter, if water does not have a clear from your roof to the ground, it will stay up there and freeze and potentially cause damage to your roof, attic and it might be just the thing to promote the mold growth.
Same rules apply here, you need to check your gutters at least twice a year to make sure they are clean. Another very important thing is that you need to ensure is that pipes are properly installed in that that the water runs at least 10 feet away from your home.
These were just a few hints and tips on what to look out for when dealing with this kind of problems. The best cure is, of course, having regular mold inspections because no repair can fix anything as good as preventing something from breaking in the first place.