Types of Mold on Walls

The consequences of any flood and leaks in the house always require quick elimination. Especially when it comes to mold that is the constant companion of increased dampness and stagnant water. If you fix household appliances, dry the floors and basements and replace damaged furniture quickly enough, then the fight against mold can be significantly delayed. To learn how to effectively deal with mold, it is worth learning to distinguish between its types and know the features of the fight against each of them.

What Is the Danger of Mold? Why Fight It?

Mold is a colony of a unicellular fungus that develops from spores that are constantly present in the air in a conserved state in huge quantities. Spores "wake up" for intensive reproduction as soon as favorable conditions appear for this. These conditions are high humidity and warmth.

Molds (mildew) grow on concrete, paint, or stone. They can be observed in the form of spots or dots of black, brown, blue or green colors. There are also luminous, phosphorescent mushroom colonies, but they are not scary to the facade. Mold destroys building and finishing material almost to the ground, forcing more and more repairs and sometimes rebuilding of buildings.

Besides that, some types of mold on the wall are dangerous not only for concrete and bricks but for human's health also. Mold can become a source of a pungent odor, cause allergic reactions, and provoke the development of malignant neoplasms, since mold spores, affecting the human body, can lead to the formation of cancer cells in the tissues of organs. In order not to risk your health, you need to timely detect and eliminate both the mold itself and the cause of its appearance.

So there are enough reasons to remove that entity from your house.

To fight mold efficiently, it is necessary to know what types of mold on the walls are the most dangerous. Let us get it through.

Basic Classification of Types of Mold

All the entities that you can get on your walls due to high humidity or flood are the following:

• Black mold is the most dangerous type.
• White mold is more common for foods and grounds.
• Blue mold.
• Actinomycetes.

Black Mold and Its Types

The color of this type of mold depends not only on its type but also on the stage of development, as well as the material on which it grows. As a rule, the following strains are black:

• Ulocladium is of the fourth pathogenicity group. It affects not only materials but also foods. It is very precise about the presence of moisture.
• Cladosporium is colorless at the initial stage, except black, can take on a wide range of colors. The most dangerous for seeds and plants, not picky about moisture, can develop at low temperatures. It is the most common outdoor fungus in the summer. Some species feed on diesel fuel and lubricants, which is why they got the name kerosene mushroom. Also affects other types of materials.
• Penicillium. Fungus of this family plays a huge role in the environment as they are actively used in pharmaceuticals for the preparation of medicines, in the food industry for the preparation of refined cheese with white mold. Some strains like Penicillium Marneffei and Penicillium spp belong to the third and fourth groups of pathogenicity and pose a significant danger to human health; in addition, these types of mold on the walls grow extremely quickly.
• Aspergillus belongs to the highest mold fungi, and, depending on the type, belong to groups 4 and 3 of pathogenicity. This type of mold causes aspergillosis in humans and animals. The mycelium itself is initially white, but its spores are black. It is most often found indoors.
• Chaetomium is typically black in color. It often causes allergies in people. The main danger is when it enters the digestive tract. It is known that this fungus was the cause of deaths.
• Phoma belongs to the fourth group of pathogenicity. The mycelium is almost always black, and the spores are colorless.
• Wallemia is painted black. It does not pose a serious danger to humans, but belongs to the Xerophilic type, that is, it can grow in conditions of low humidity and high temperatures, which causes some problems when fighting it.

Black mold is the most dangerous among all the types of mold on the wall. Other types are of less danger and you can rarely find them on the wall after the flood. White mold is more common for foods and soils. Yet, there are blue fungi that affect the fiber of a tree, and the surface of a wooden house is painted not at all in a noble gray-blue color. The damage from blue is not only aesthetic. It easily penetrates the paint film and thus creates a kind of "water pipes". It creates paths for water to enter, which in turn increases the moisture content of the wood. Then nothing prevents mold from penetrating and fixing in the neighborhood. Pine is especially susceptible to blue. One more dangerous type of mold are actinomycetes. These are a cross between fungi and algae. They not only spoil the appearance, but also destroy the fibers, and also cause the wood to soften, causing irreparable damage to wooden structures.

All types of mold on walls are not welcome guests in your house. In case, you have noticed traces of mold on your walls, it is necessary to call water leaking detection services and water repair services to remove them as soon as possible.