Mould/mildew through the paint and in the walls - help neede

[sumboyman]

Hi

I live in an upsatirs flat. The back stairs are very cold at the bottom and at the top is the bathroom and kitchen and over time quite a lot of mildew damp has developed.

I've now had a door installed at the top of the stairs and ventilation installed in kitchen and bathroom to try and resolve problem long term.

I have spent today cleaning off all of the mould form the paintwork using HG Mould Spray which seemed to be really effective. Annoyingly some of the paint has come away and scraping this back the mildew has permiated through the paint in to the walls and celling which is boarded and skimmed.

So my question is - is there any way to deal with this without replacing the walls? I'd really like to avoid that if possible but not sure how I can clean mildew out of a porus material.

Id hoped cleaning the mould down, repainting with some better quality paint and increasing the ventilation would fix the problem but now its in to the plaster Im not sure?

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated.

Cheers

Steven

 

[Flyboytim]

If you have removed the damp the mould will not regrow.

Mould spores are always present.

Condensation occurs when the temperature of the air is higher than a cold surface.

If the temperatures of air and the surface are the same, condensation will not happen, and the damp will dry off by evaporation.

So how do you keep the surface at the same temperature as the air? - by passing plenty of room temperature air over the cold surface.

Use a fan to move the air, not extra heat, not by opening windows when the outside is already cold nor using extractors or dehumidifiers.

Extractors will just force cold outside air to leak in by draughts through doorways, underfloor voids, and other holes and cracks making cold surfaces colder.

If using an extractor to remove steam etc from a room, close the door and open the window in that room for a short time.

If the damp wall takes too much time to dry, then the mould will regrow.

In my opinion, the best agent to destroy mould & spores is just thick bleach, applied neat with a synthetic bristle paint brush, without any scrubbing, and allowed to dry without wiping off.

With a fan blowing on the surface, the bleach smell goes after a few hours. It also removes the mould smell.

In my experience it does not discolour or damage modern paints nor washable wallpapers any more than the mould and damp has done already.