If mold has found its way into your home, it’s only a matter of time until it seeps into your AC unit. Mold loves humid, wet environments, and an AC unit is the perfect place for it to grow. This is an issue for a plethora of reasons — indoor mold growth is harmful to everyone’s health, can cause your AC unit to work inefficiently or not at all, and can lead to interior spaces covered in unsightly spores.
Our experts here at Maven Restoration go over some common signs of mold growth in an AC unit and how to remedy the issue. If you start to notice mold spores around your home or in your AC unit, get in touch with our mold removal specialists today.
One of the easiest ways to determine if mold is inside your AC unit is with noticeable spots or spores. Start by removing the grate from the front of your ac unit — this should be easy, requiring just a little pull or removal of a few screws — and use a flashlight to inspect the unit’s interior. Signs of mold include streaks or clusters of brown, black, green, or fuzzy stains. This can range from a small bunch of spores to more severe cases where mold has fully covered the interior of an AC unit. If the mold outbreak has fully encompassed the AC unit or the attached ducts, it’s likely that it has spread throughout the home and requires mold cleanup services.
If you start to notice that no matter how much cleaning you do or how many allergy medications you take, the sniffles and watery eyes just won’t go away, it’s likely that there’s mold growth inside of the AC unit. In this case, your nose is your best tool in determining the severity of the mold infestation. Go room to room and take a deep breath through your nose — if you notice a musty smell, it’s likely that mold has spread throughout your AC unit and potentially into other portions of your home, such as behind the walls. Another way to check is to turn off the AC unit, wait a few hours to see if the smell dissipates, then turn it back on. If the smell comes back, then the problem is likely the AC unit.
Another common issue with mold growth inside the AC unit is an efficiency reduction. Mold tends to grow on the interior coils of an AC unit, as this is a dark, wet environment, which is perfect for mold growth. If these internal coils are covered, the system will struggle to cool the air it pulls in from the outside, resulting in warmer interior temperatures and a more uncomfortable living environment. Over time, the extra work that the AC unit has to perform to cool your home can result in the interior components becoming more worn down, shortening the lifespan of your AC unit, and eventually leaving you without any AC in your home.
Depending on the severity of the mold growth throughout the AC unit, and potentially your home, there are multiple ways you can go about removing the mold. If the spread is minor and contained to just your AC unit, warm water mixed with dish soap and a little bleach should be enough to get rid of the mold. In the unfortunate event that the mold has spread to more locations throughout the home, reconstruction services may be needed to remove any remaining spores.
Contact our team at Maven Restoration today to schedule mold remediation services!
Locally owned and operated in Gainesville, FL, Maven Construction Group is a licensed general contractor, Angie’s List Certified Contractor, and is accredited and A-rated by the Better Business Bureau. Maven has delivered the best damage restoration and reconstruction services in North Central Florida for more than 15 years.
Certified General Contractor Lic # CGC1519003 Certified Mold Remediation Lic # MRSR2344