Assessing and Reducing Fungal Growth in Buildings

Restoration professionals need to provide a professional and defendable assessment of a building potentially affected by mold growth. To do that, they need to understand the impact of indoor air quality on fungal growth and familiarize themselves with the ASTM 7338 Standard for Fungal Growth in Buildings. Jeremy Stamkos, principal consultant at Eronmor, an indoor environmental consultancy based in Melbourne, offered an overview of the standard and discussed how best to use the document at the 2019 RIA Conference & Tradeshow in Queensland, Australia.

The ASTM 7338 Standard for Fungal Growth in Buildings offers guidance for conducting assessments of fungal growth in buildings, detailing the minimum steps and procedures for collecting background information on the building, procedures for evaluating the potential for moisture infiltration or collection, steps for inspecting suspected fungal growth and procedures beyond the scope of a basic survey to address specific problems. However, the standard doesn’t provide recommendations for microbial sampling and analysis or recommendations for remediation.

Stamkos specializes in helping clients solve complex indoor air quality issues that they’ve been struggling with for prolonged periods. “Implementing measures to improve indoor air quality can minimize occurrences of fungal growth by reducing the amount of viable spores, maintaining acceptable relative humidity (below 60% RH) and cleaning to reduce available nutrient sources,” he says. However, he notes that challenges arise when self-proclaimed indoor environmental professionals provide incorrect or poor advice when they “simply aren’t qualified to provide such advice.”

Stamkos says some of the key factors in reducing fungal growth in buildings include but are not limited to the following:

• Ensuring overall building cleanliness to reduce total bioburden and nutrient sources for fungal proliferation
• Having a building under slight positive pressure with conditioned (not just heated or cooled) air
• Ensuring air-conditioning systems are inspected regularly for fungal growth and cleaned as required
• Maintaining façades, roof tops, flashings, general plumbing, etc. to help prevent deterioration of materials over time which may allow rain water ingress

When assessing potential fungal growth in buildings, Stamkos advises that “some of the first steps in assessing potential fungal growth in buildings is to establish why there is a cause of concern in the first place and determine if conditions have been (or are) present that would be conducive to fungal growth.” He adds that “gathering the relevant history of the building is crucial to developing an effective assessment strategy.” Stamkos explains, “Once the relevant information has been gathered and the assessment strategy developed, the assessment of the building can be done to determine the cause of the excess moisture (storm water ingress, plumbing leaks, high humidity, etc.) as well as the presence and extent of actual fungal growth.” Restoration professionals who follow the guidance in the ASTM 7338 Standard for Fungal Growth in Buildings and take into account the history of the building they are working on will be in a better position to not only execute their restoration plans well but also ensure the client is satisfied with the results.