Do you want your basement concrete floor to resist mold growth? Read this and learn more about Mold-Resist™!
How does this work?
Cement: The apartment building for Small Life
Cast concrete has a natural porosity. The size of its pores varies from about a ten-thousandth of an inch to much smaller. Ground water and water vapor can come in this way, even if all your windows were closed.
Many kinds of fungi, yeasts, bacteria, mold and its spores [spores are the seeds of molds or fungi] are about that size or smaller. So, there’s plenty of room for Small Life to move in, settle down, raise families and teach their young.
Where do they come from?
The dust in the air is the main source of molds and bacteria that get into anyone’s environment. This is well known. You can search on the Internet for information about organic dust in the air with mold or spores.
Mold that lives in the porosity of damp concrete will broadcast its spores into the air, which is what these critters do. Their spores float in the air and are carried wherever the air moves.
The Small Life of this planet: Free-range Organic All-Natural Ingredients
The entire surface of this planet is an open range where Small Life roams freely. The different kinds of molds, fungi, yeast and bacteria outnumber all the other kinds of animal, fish, insect and plant life put together. Small Life has had about a billion years to learn how to survive under almost any conditions, to grow virtually anywhere, and the wind carries soil dust and the Small Life living in it, from down the street or an island in the South Pacific or a barnyard in Mongolia, around the world and right in your window.
A spore came in my open window. Will it hatch and grow somewhere?
Yes, many of them will. The others may get eaten by other Small Life, or just add to the layer of dust that accumulates on everything.
Why does a spore hatch and grow somewhere?
Many kinds of fungi, including black mold and mildew, have a cell wall [their skin] that has to be kept damp. That’s why they flourish mainly in damp places.
All organic life on this planet uses water. All its chemical reactions are carried out in water.
The units of Small Life that can eat food and move around and reproduce themselves have a membrane [“cell wall”] that keeps their insides all together. People and animals and insects are made this way, with skin and muscles and shells and such.
One big difference between salamanders and lizards, for instance, is that the skin of a salamander has to be kept wet, otherwise it would dry out and the critter would die. Earthworms are like that, too. Lizards, on the other hand, have a kind of skin that keeps their body’s water inside [along with the rest of their innards].
How does this connect with concrete porosity and ventilation?
When you have a damp basement floor and ground water diffuses through the concrete porosity and evaporates inside, it pumps moisture into the air. Thus the air is near 100% humidity down there, and that’s the perfect climate for mold to grow in the floors or the wood basement walls or other surfaces down there. The mold spores along with other dust gives air a “musty” smell when inhaled. That’s why damp basements have that musty odor.
Our lungs and sinuses are damp inside, naturally. They are self-cleaning but only to a degree. That’s why it is not healthy to live in an environment that has a lot of mold or mold spores in the air.
That’s why treating porous concrete with Mold-Resist [and, of course, good ventilation] is a good idea.
