The Mould Show

Do you need to know if your indoor air quality is being affected by mould spores? Has your property been water damaged? Is there a smell? Are you concerned about biotoxins? Covering the what, how and why of spore trap testing. I'm also discussing some real world examples from under the microscope. Find out when they are useful and my Top 6 tips for success and some pitfalls of this widely used method. I’ll also be doing a Q&A and links to papers/resources will be provided after the livestream in the description or comments.

TOP 6 TIPS FOR SUCCESS WITH SPORE TRAPS:
 
1. Take enough samples - must have representative data to answer questions about habitability across the home and in regions of interest
2. Adequate controls taken - statistical significance
3. Samples taken in the breathing zone
4. Spore trap data linked to other types of sampling
5. Consider destructive testing where there’s a suspicion of hidden mould eg. behind walls
6. Always test the roof void - often the hidden mould reservoir

JOIN ME ON THE WEEKLY LIVESTREAM AT:  https://www.facebook.com/biologicalhealth/

REFERENCES

Jones CL. Crowd Sourced Taxonomic Identification Guide for Categorization
and Quantification of Fungal Spores by Optical Microscopy. J Mycol
Mycological Sci 2019, 2(1): 000106. https://www.medwinpublishers.com/OAJMMS/OAJMMS16000106.pdf

ASTM D7391 - 17e1 Standard Test Method for Categorization and Quantification of Airborne Fungal Structures in an Inertial Impaction Sample by Optical Microscopy. https://www.astm.org/Standards/D7391.htm

ASTM D7440 - 08(2015)e1 Standard Practice for Characterizing Uncertainty in Air Quality Measurements. https://www.astm.org/Standards/D7440.htm

ASTM D7338 - 14 Standard Guide for Assessment Of Fungal Growth in Buildings. https://www.astm.org/Standards/D7338.htm WHO guidelines for indoor air quality: dampness and mould. Publication date: 2009. www.who.int/airpollution/guidelines/dampness-mould/en/

Carol Y. Rao , Harriet A. Burge & John C.S. Chang (1996) Review of Quantitative Standards and Guidelines for Fungi in Indoor Air, Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 46:9, 899-908, DOI: 10.1080/10473289.1996.10467526

Cabral, J.P.S. (2010). Can we use indoor fungi as bioindicators of indoor air quality? Historical perspectives and open questions. Science of The Total Environment. 408(20): 4285-4295. doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2010.07.005

Dananche ́ C, Gustin M-P, Cassier P, Loeffert ST, Thibaudon M, Be ́net T, et al. (2017) Evaluation of hirst-type spore trap to monitor environmental fungal load in hospital. PLoS ONE 12(5): e0177263. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0177263

Today I’m going to be talking about the subject of Bio-Tape - otherwise known as Tape Lifts or Cellotape Lifts. These are very commonly used in water damage investigations for mould and I’m going to tell you how they’re used, some of their advantages, and some of their disadvantages.

Q: WHY ARE THEY USED?
A: If you see visible mould, how can you measure it?

•You could take a photograph, but that doesn’t tell you what fungi are present?
•You could take a surface press plate impression - but that’s a whole other topic called Viable Sampling
•You could take a spore trap - but that also doesn’t tell you about surfaces, only indirectly try since that measures the concentration of mould in the air.
•You could even take a swab sample - but again, you need complex microbiological media to streak the swab across and incubation facilities.

ENTER: The Tape Lift.

•These are a sticky microscope slides.

BENEFITS/PRO’S:

1. Quick to do and relatively inexpensive
2. Easy to test a range ion different surfaces
3. Test and send to lab - the lab does the hard work

CON’S:

1. Potential bias in sampling - you could cherry pick ALL mouldy areas or pick all non-mouldy areas are manipulate the conclusions drawn by the data
2. Species ID much harder when tape is ripped off the surface - causes damage to tiny cell structure. Like ripping off a bandaid.

CONCLUSIONS:

1. It should be used as a companion or complementary method e.g. use tape lifts and RODAC press plates in combination for contents testing.
2. If a number of samples are taken from a representative set of surfaces to answer a specific question, the method is reliable
3. Next time you have need for a mould assessment ask if tape lift testing is available ands is suitable for your situation?

REFERENCES:

Citation: Jones CL. Comment on fungal tape lift reporting frameworks. J Bacteriol Mycol Open Access. 2019;7(6):155‒157. DOI: 10.15406/jbmoa.2019.07.00262

JOIN ME ON THE WEEKLY LIVESTREAM AT:  https://www.facebook.com/biologicalhealth/

When you go to the Doctor and follow their treatment advice you usually feel pretty confidant in their skills safe in the knowledge that they have successfully graduated their medical degree. You assume they follow procedures and know where to access expert advice and information to help them do their job properly.

• But what about when your home or office or personal property has been damaged by unexpected water?
• Do you have a valid claim for damages? Is mould a real or foreseeable risk?
• How is the building or your home contents going to be assessed OR how have they been assessed?
• What criteria will be considered? What lens will you assessor or inspector use? These are fundamental questions that bring into focus both the applied and theoretical aspects underpinning mould remediation and restoration.

Now if you’re watching or listening to this - I’m assuming you want to know if there are some objective methods or approaches used by the water damage and restoration industry; and if so what are they and where do you get them to read yourself?

This is what I’m covering in todays show… Specifically, I’m going to draw your attention to my Top 5 Best-Of Mould Remediation Standards List:

TOP 5 Best-Of List:

1. S500: • Revised in 2015. It covers steps in how to approach and implement water damage restoration.
2. S520: • Third Edition, 2915. It covers steps in how to approach and implement mould remediation.
3. R520: • Third Edition, 2015. Supplementary reference guide for mould remediation.
4. AMG 2010: • Practical guide and reference to mould remediation and testing benchmarks. The defacto Australian Guideline. See: The Australian Mould Guideline
5. The Mould Worker’s Handbook (2010): • Companion guidebook for dealing with mould. THERE ARE OTHERS…

Join me each week on the livestream: https://www.facebook.com/biologicalhealth/

Think that mould only grows on bread, or on rotting fruit or if it does get inside your home - doesn’t it just live inside your air conditioning ducts where condensation can form, or if there’s been a flood or unexpected water ingress then it might grow on damp wall linings like gyprock plasterboard or on soft furnishings like backpacks or curtains?

This week, I’m wanting to talk about mould growth in extreme habitats like stone and mineral building elements. Think it can’t happen? I didn’t? I thought the only time microbes attacked walls was on really old ones where cultural artefacts like murals in churches or in caves become damaged. This phenomenon is called biodeterioration in the literature. However, I want to share with you some results from an inspection I did where we found mould growing not just on old plaster, but behind bricks, in old mortar joins, behind and between excised bricks and when we cracked some of the bricks open, there was even mould growing inside!!!! How can this be explained? After all, bricks and other stone materials like concrete and terrazzo-type floor tiles are typically a pretty poor foodstuff for microorganisms.

In a recent elegant experiment, some scientists from Israel and Germany did an elegant experiment showing that a fungus called Nigrospora spherica was the dominant fungus with a 100% match with the fungus found growing in efflorescence degrading stone chips of terrazzo floor tiles. When the particle size of the terrazzo was <1mm, the fungus dissolved more than 70% of the powdered tile in 10 days.

Now imagine what happens to your brick work when it gets wet and you see efflorescence. That’s a sign of fungal attack. If you have rising damp, you have slow biodeterioration going on indoors. Health concerns were raised by the authors of this study about breathing in the crystalline salts by residents where terrazzo tiles are breaking up.

This type of dilapidation happens eventually in the built environment. Now I want to show you some examples of fungi growing in a water damaged building inside a wall behind thick plaster….look at the clearly visible mycelium…. What about concrete? Typical fungi to those seen in the contaminated bricks include Aspergillus fumigatus and Penicillium brevicompactum. When concrete specimens were inoculated with these typical fungi and tested for stability and examined under a scanning electron microscope…do you know what they saw and found? The fungi induced: Calcium release from the concrete. If the concrete was wet, then they saw more rapid calcium loss compared to drier concrete.

After 28-days of growth with Penicillium, the stability of the concrete showed a 1% loss.

Now, lets revisit the mould in brick examples… What do you think is going to happen to your house if there’s a fire and the whole house is saturated? How is your remediation process going to get the mould and spores and biofilms out of the bricks, inside the bricks and between the mortar joins?

Citation: Jones CL. Guidelines for the assessment of viable fungal hygiene on indoor surfaces using RODAC petri plates. J Bacteriol Mycol Open Access.
2019;7(5):116‒126. DOI: 10.15406/jbmoa.2019.07.00256

REFERENCES:

Metabolic Activity of Micromycetes Affecting Urban Concrete Constructions.  The Scientific World Journal. Volume 2018, Article ID 8360287, https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/8360287 OR https://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/2018/8360287/abs/

Laboratory study of fungal bioreceptivity of different fractions of composite flooring tiles showing efflorescence. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. DOI 10.1007/s00253-014-5628-4 OR https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24652060

Concrete Damage in Field Conditions and Protective Sealer and Coating Systems. Coatings 7(7): June. DOI: 10.3390/coatings7070090 OR https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6412/7/7/90

Welcome to The Mould Show. Here’s where I bring you weekly practical information, research highlights and interviews with experts on how you can maximise your indoor air quality and minimise your exposure to harmful mould.

Today I’m going to introduce who I am, what we’re going to cover and discuss how mould fits into the triad of disease, illness, and sickness. This podcast is the audio version of live stream video that I do weekly at 11am on Thursdays.

You can join me at: https://www.facebook.com/biologicalhealth/

Sickness behaviour following mould exposure has finally been validated. It turns out that anxiety, memory deficits and pain thresholds are all switched on by BOTH toxic and non-toxic mould. The research shows that mould spores and mould cell wall fragments can adversely affect the brain and influence behaviour by challenging and activating the innate immune system. In this week's Livestream I'm going to be talking about these important findings and making them understandable for a lay audience.

REFERENCES:

Harding CF, Pytte CL, Page KG, Ryberg KJ, Normand E, Remigio GJ, DeStefano RA, Morris DB, Voronina J, Lopez A, Stalbow LA, Williams EP and Abreu O. Mold inhalation causes innate immune activation, neural, cognitive and emotional dysfunction. Brain, Behaviour, and Immunity. Available online 18th November 2019.  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889159119303010

Anand KS and Dhikav V. Hippocampus in health and disease: An overview. Ann Indian Acad Neurol. 2012 Oct-Dec; 15(4): 239–246. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3548359/

Boato, F., Hechler, D., Rosenberger, K. et al. Interleukin-1 beta and neurotrophin-3 synergistically promote neurite growth in vitro . J Neuroinflammation 8, 183 (2011) doi:10.1186/1742-2094-8-183

Cui J, Chen Y, Wang HY, Wang RF. Mechanisms and pathways of innate immune activation and regulation in health and cancer. Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2014;10(11):3270–3285. doi:10.4161/21645515.2014.979640

Jones, CL. Environmental exposure patterns for airborne particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) inside residential properties. ACNEM Journal. 2016; 35(1): 20-21.  

This week we’re talking about disinfectants and more specifically bleach or sodium hypochlorite. “Does it work, no it doesn’t, look it just feeds the mould, no it doesn’t, yes it does, it makes the mycotoxins worse and simply changes mould from one colour to no colour” Fact or fiction? We all know, there's a lot of websites that say conflicting things. Who do you believe? You might even know the answer, maybe you’ve already made up your mind? But wait - what does the science say? To bring some perspective to the bleach debate, I’m going to take a look at what the National Wrestling Coach Association has to say. Up to 20% of wrestling injuries are caused by skin infections. Tune in to this episode and find out what the martial artists discovered about bacterial transmission and how this leads to improved disinfection methods and best practice for surface decontamination? HINT: contact sports are associated with an increased risk of skin infections, but the conclusions from their research are valuable (and transferrable) to the indoor living environment and similarly, to water-damaged interiors. Join me tomorrow as I go through this very practical topic since all of us from time to time need to clean up the mould. After all, over 70% of homes test positive for mould and research shows that windowsills are often the most frequently contaminated sites. What are we to do? Reach for the latest kill mould solution from the supermarket or hardware store, reach for the latest ultra-green plant-based carbon credit contributing liquid or test out something simple like vinegar? Which disinfectants are best for porous and non-porous materials? What about essential oils? TEASER ALERT: Clove oil (a hidden secret)...see the graph showing its antibacterial effect. All these are viable options you might consider when you need to clean the mould away. But, before you begin, I want to shine a spotlight on what the research says so you can make better-informed decisions for your next cleaning task. Stay till the end and I’ll also show you a simple bathroom hack for cleaning grout joints that have gone mouldy?