If you are considering doing some
basement renovation then you will first want to deal with any mold you might have down there. Mold can cause many health problems and some types of mold have been associated with sudden infant death syndrome. Mold can also trigger allergies, cause infections, and toxic mold can cause many flu-like symptoms. It is believed that many of the incidents of sick building syndrome are caused by mold growing undetected. This is why it is vital that you sort this mold out before going any further with your basement renovation project.
It often happens that it is during attempts to renovate a basement that mold first gets discovered. Many peoples basements are so full of junk that they completely avoid the area at all costs. Beginning renovations and discovering the mold can turn out to be fortuitous because if mold really takes hold it can cost a fortune to put right. Just finding this mold early could actually end up saving you a lot more money than you are going to put into your basement renovation.
So your first job will be to remove any mold before your begin your
basement renovation. There is always the risk that this mold could be toxic so you will need to take some safety precautions before dealing with; wear a respiratory mask and eye protectors. If there is a lot of mold then you might be better to call in the professionals; a general rule is that if you are dealing with more than 10 square feet then you should probably get help. When dealing with the mold without help probably the best way of doing this is to fill a liquid-spray bottle with a mixture containing fifty/fifty water and bleach or water and vinegar. You then spray the area to completely cover it with the solution and allow it to soak for a quarter of an hour. Afterwards you can rinse the mold off. There are then solutions you can buy to stop the mold coming back, but if do your
basement renovations correctly then you should prevent it coming back anyway. This means that you will remove all sources of dampness from your basement. If there is water coming from outside then you will need to fix against leakage. If it is due to condensation then you will need to find a way to ventilate this outside and away from your basement.
