Mould behind bathroom cladding?

[Rizzles3]

Hi all,
I’m needing a bit of advice from someone who knows more about this!
We moved into a housing association house just over a year ago and we have a wet room which consists of safety flooring and plastic/pvc wall panels.
We’ve recently had the flooring replaced as the old was illegal, but I’m fairly certain that there is going to be a lot of mould behind the panels on the walls as there is incredibly poor ventilation in the bathroom and there was no sealant and lots of mould from the bottom of the panels in the shower area when we moved in. (We’ve cleaned the mould and they replaced the sealant, although it just seems to have disappeared again?)
Is there any way I can test for mould before pushing for the housing association to look at it?
I don’t want to argue my point, for them to take the panels off and there not be any mould.

I was thinking about getting a moisture meter detector but I don’t know if it would work on pvc panels.

Any suggestions on how I can check for this without taking the panels off the walls?

Thanks in advance!

 

[robinbanks]

If it's behind an impervious plastic sheet, what does it matter?

Ventilate your bathroom properly and squeegee then dry the walls with a towel (that you hang outside or in a tumble dryer, not throw over a radiator) if you want to minimize mould

 

[Rizzles3]

Because we have a smell of damp/mould in the bathroom and can’t figure out anywhere else it’s coming from.
Also, wouldn’t it cause damage to the property if it’s just left without treatment??

In reply to your comment about ventilation, I mentioned in my post that there is incredibly poor ventilation in the bathroom.
We do the best we can with what we have, but there’s no where for it to go.

Do you have a suggestion to how we can test for mould?

 

[robinbanks]

Are you saying your property was built noncompliant with the building regulations for controlling buildup of moisture in wet areas? There should be a way to ventilate the room, be that a window or extractor. If there isn't your HA should fit one

I doubt you'd be able to smell mould behind plastic shower panels; more likely some other part of the room is holding moisture eg a leaking shower tray causing wet flooring or the ceiling being persistently damp

There isn't a meter you can stick in a surface to tell you it's mouldy; the check for that is visual..

I'd think it likely if you ensure adequate ventilation to the room this smell will disappear as the surfaces dry out

 

[Rizzles3]

They are aware of it. We had a surveyor out who stated an extractor fan needed to be fitted but it hasn’t happened yet.

We have had numerous issues with the property since moving in where things have either been neglected or not done/installed properly in the first place. My concern is that the seals are not correct and are allowing water behind the panels.

We don’t have a shower tray. It is a wet room with safety flooring throughout (think hospital bathrooms). I know there isn’t any mould under the flooring as that was just replaced at the beginning of February as the old flooring was no longer legal.
The ceiling does get damp, but we clean it at the very first sign of mould and there isn’t any significant issues there that we can see.
This is what’s leading me to believe that it might be from behind the panels.

The meter I was referring to was the moisture detector. I’m aware it wouldn’t tell me if there was mould, but it would tell me if there was moisture in the walls and therefore likely to be mould or not.
With the pvc panelling; assuming all seals are fitted correctly etc, the walls should not be damp. This is the only way I could think of checking, but I didn’t know if it would read through a pvc panel.

When we ventilate as best we can, it appears to be fully dry after a while; yet the smell persists.

I have decent knowledge when it comes to diy and I research all things myself fully before asking for help. I’m aware and have checked all the things you have suggested so far.
All I’m wanting to know is if there is a way to detect damp behind the pvc panels without removing them.

 

[opps]

Moisture meters are (often) a waste of money. I purchased one years ago. They work by checking the electrical conductivity over the two pins/probes.

They are great for checking the moisture in timber but when it come down to plastered brick walls, the salts activated by the previous moisture will give false positives.


If you have panelled wall you would need to push the pins through the facing (and compromise it).

 

[robinbanks]

As opps alludes to with the false positives comment, moisture meters aren't really plug and play devices intended for use by the untrained..

If you want to know what's behind the panels, I think you may just have to have a look,,

 

[foxhole]

Needs air movement to get mound behind anything , only way there is mould is if it was there when fitted.