POWAY, Calif. (KGTV) – Two schools in the Poway Unified School District are being greatly impacted and having testing done after mold concerns were found on the campuses.
A local company told ABC 10News that mold can pop even if school isn't in session because everything’s locked up, there’s not enough ventilation happening, and temperatures inside classrooms and other buildings are higher than normal because the a/c is turned off.
“Usually, the most common way is water damage; some type of leak. But usually what happens over the summer is we’ll have what’s called spontaneous mold growth,” said Moe Bedard, the owner of Mold Safe Solutions
In the past few weeks, mold has been found at two schools in the Poway Unified School District — Black Mountain Middle and Del Sur Elementary.
Bedard has no connection to the district, but as an expert in the field, ABC 10News asked him about how mold can form in a school.
“What you have is the air conditioning; you’re turning it off and on. And then you’ll have prolonged time periods, like say in the summer, where it’s really hot, they turn off the A/C and literally close the doors, and they don’t come back for several months. So it creates these thermal conditions for like the mold to start growing,” Bedard said.
The district and Black Mountain Middle School said on Monday that cleaning and remediation efforts in impacted rooms were finished on Sunday.
Next steps and test results for parents were broken down in documents that Poway Unified sent to the school community. In part of those documents, they said, “The leading hypothesis is that moisture remained following summer carpet cleaning, creating conditions that allowed mold to develop in some rooms. That hypothesis has not yet been conclusively established.”
ABC 10News asked Bedard if this could cause mold to grow in a school.
“Unfortunately, with steam carpet cleaning, it takes anywhere from 48 to 72 hours for that carpet to dry. With most schools, it is commercial carpet. It will dry quicker, but for example, if it's not dry, they close those doors; that mold will grow,” Bedard said.
The district’s document said that factors such as indoor humidity, leaks, HVAC operation, and carpet cleaning will be examined in the mold investigation.
Bedard told ABC 10News some of his solutions for keeping areas mold-free.
“Before you close up the doors, maybe do a clean, a wipe down of the classrooms, and then maybe every 30 days, 2 weeks you have the janitors open up the rooms and let air go through there rather than let them close for 2 months and then you come to mold growing on everything,” Bedard said.
