Flat Commercial Roof Mold: What To Do About It
When you have a flat commercial roof, you need to be careful about the various issues that can arise. There is generally poor drainage, and this can lead to ponding water. If the water sits long enough, it creates many problems, including mold. Once mold is present, it’s important to know how to get rid of it appropriately so that you don’t end up losing your entire roof.
How Does Mold Form?
Mold is a form of fungus and grows when there is moisture around. As long as there is available mold food, available mold spores, considerable moisture, and appropriate temperatures, mold is going to grow – and it can grow very quickly.
Mold spores are almost always present in the air. It is simply looking for a place to grow. When you have moisture, such as rainwater ponding on your roof, you are providing the humidity that the mold spores need. As for the food, the mold will eat through your roof until there is nothing left – and this is an expensive problem to deal with.
Mold can start to grow after just a few short days, which means you cannot risk leaving water ponding on the top of your roof for long periods of time. As long as you have a roof, you will be providing plenty of food for the fungus to grow and spread. Over time, it will go through layer by layer of your roof, which can then allow the elements into your commercial property.
What Can You Do to Get Rid of the Mold?
The first thing you need to identify is whether you have mold growing on your roof or if it is algae. Algae may not look attractive, but it’s not actually going to cause any kind of damage. However, mold will cause extensive amounts of damage and therefore you need to look at mold removal options immediately. There are various cleaning chemicals that you can use to spray down your roof in order to kill the mold. Essentially, you are killing the mold spores, thus preventing it from spreading across your roof.
As you know, if you don’t get rid of the moisture problem, however, it will only be a matter of time before more mold spores land and you will be back to the same problem.
You need to address any mold issues first. Get rid of the mold and mildew so that it can stop eating at your roof and causing damage. You may need to get repairs or patches to get the roof under control.
After that, you need to address the overall drainage issue. If you have a flat roof, you know that this can be a difficult problem. There may be all sorts of problems with the ponding because you have low spots that make it easy for the water to gather. Once in the low spot, there’s no drainage that will help. You have to depend on dry air and sun to help evaporate the water. However, if you can fix low spots and improve the overall slope of your flat roof, you can make it easier for water to drain off.
Consider what you have going on across your roof right now. If there are low spots or a negative slope, water will accumulate every time it rains. This means you run the risk of mold forming if the water sits up there for more than about 48 hours.
You don’t want to run the risk of mold eating your roof and therefore you must work to keep water from ponding. Learn more about roof mold and how to prevent mold from ever happening by contacting RoofSlope today.
