How to Remove Mold in Your Shower & Locker Rooms
Mold inside the shower or locker rooms of your facility can be a big problem. Not only does it discolor grout and weaken wood, but it’s also potentially hazardous to your health and the health of those using your facility. So to make sure that your locker rooms and showers are safe and mold-free, it’s important to remove any signs of mold or mildew once they appear.
In this guide, we’ll tell you how to remove mold properly as well as how you can prevent mold from coming back.
What You Need for Mold Removal
Having the proper supplies is an important part of mold removal. After all, if the mold isn’t removed properly, there’s a good chance it will come back and spread to other areas of your facility. Not only that, but without the right gear, your cleaning team could get sick when trying to clean the infected areas.
Here’s what you need:
1. Old clothes or a jumpsuit: You want to launder or dispose of any clothes you wear when cleaning the mold-infected area. Otherwise, you could unintentionally spread mold to other rooms or experience an adverse reaction to the mold spores.
2. Rubber gloves: These are important to protect your hands from coming in contact with mold or the cleaning chemicals used during removal.
3. N-95 or P-100 respirator: These respirators are specially made to block out mold spores, which can be as small as 3 microns. For reference, a strand of human hair is about 125 microns.
4. Safety goggles: These will protect your eyes from any mold spores that might be floating in the air as well as any harmful vapors from the cleaning chemicals.
5. Spray bottle: You can use a simple spray bottle filled with water to gently wet any visible mold before you start cleaning to limit the number of spores released into the air.
6. Box fan: It’s vital to keep the room well ventilated. If there’s a window or door leading outside, use a large box fan to remove any mold spores. Be sure to cover any part of the window or door with a plastic drop cloth or cardboard so the spores can’t accidently blow back into the room. DO NOT use fans if blowing into another room in the facility – only use if there’s a direct path outside.
7. Bleach: Use bleach and water to treat mold-infected areas.
8. Bucket for cleaning
9. Scrub brush
10. Flathead screwdriver for grout lines
How to Remove Mold
After you’ve put on your protective clothing and set up any appropriate ventilation, it’s time to start treating the mold-infected areas. If you can’t ventilate the room properly, seal it off from the rest of the facility until cleaning is complete. Be sure to cover any air vents or turn off the ventilation system.
When you’re ready to start, use the spray bottle to gently wet the mold. This will help to prevent spores from flying into the air as you clean. Then use a 1:8 bleach/water mixture to clean the infected areas. Scrub using a tough cleaning brush or use a flathead screwdriver to gently scrape mold from grout lines. Consider adding some detergent to your cleaning mixture to make it easier to lift the mold.
Rinse surfaces well. Wipe down the walls, floors, and any other treated surface and launder or dispose of the used towels. Place them in a large trash bag to try to keep any of the mold from escaping.
Preventing Mold from Returning
Treating mold can be a relatively quick and inexpensive process, but it’s even easier to prevent mold and mildew from occurring in the first place. One of the best ways is to reduce the amount of moisture in the room. However, this is difficult to do in locker rooms and showers.
So the next option for preventing mold is to use materials in your facility that are naturally resistant to mold and mildew. Materials like high-density polyethylene, or HDPE, are known for their high resistance to mold. Not only that, but HDPE is also resistant to bacteria and rust.