Hi fellow Hiveians,
Today I had to act quickly to make sure the awesome wood we just bought didn’t get messed up!
Serving Mold
A few weeks ago we bought this amazing wood from a local lumber mill and we’re really excited about what we are going to use it for! It was very wet when we picked up since it was just sitting outside and it’s been raining and snowing a fair amount lately so we weren’t shocked when we saw it was as wet as it was.
What we weren’t expecting was that it would start to produce mold! My wife is allergic to mold so we have to be careful around it, we don’t want to get her sick. Thankfully it’s in an unused room while it’s drying but I thankfully had checked on it and I saw it starting to grow! I wasn’t sure what it was until I saw the fuzzy look to it in one spot and the black in another and thought well shit. What do I do? Thankfully some internet searches led me to not despair!
There were a fair amount of spots that had mold on them so I was thankfully able to spot them all and work to get it all removed.
This one was the worst one, it got to the level of being black mold. Glad I saw it before my wife did or she would have had my throw them in the woods lol.
I was a little nervous when I was looking up how to remove the mold but it turns out the easiest way to remove it is not with bleach, that’s far too strong for our needs and it could ruin the wood permanently. What works? Good old fashioned warm water and soap! The important thing is to use paper towels.
When you are using paper towels you just soak them a bit so they are wet then add the soap onto it and gently pad the wood where the mold is. At first I would dab it then throw it away. That was more wasteful then the already badly wasteful process so I would dab it, fold it and dab it again so I was able to get two dabs out of each square. Still got some good results I think. Took me about an hour to work through each of the pieces of wood to make sure there was no mold. I still have the biggest piece left but all of the others were resting on it so I don’t think another day or two will hurt.
I don’t know if this is actually what it is but I saw these brown-ish spots each time I dabbed so I think it was pulling up the mold. I’ll know more in two days when I’ll check it again, I’m hoping it should be gone or I would at least only need to do it once more to get rid of it. It wasn’t a very bad amount of mold thankfully.
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No one wants mold on their wood bro. :)
Curangeled this for you mate.
Thanks dude I appreciate it!
Moldy wood makes for a very unhappy missus let me tell you!
Lol...Oh yeah, and I'm not surprised.
That's good to know. Soap and water for the mold.
I have some mold INSIDE my house. I'm fighting a running battle with a leaky roof and have a couple of 'spots' on the ceiling. I also have some holes in my ceilings for water relief. Urrrggghhh. I actually coated the flat metal roof in March with some expensive stuff but it hasn't rained enough since to know that it worked. Mold.
I did just try something I'd wanted to try. Tools that had rusted/turned cruddy over time? Vinegar. Soak them for 48 hours in a plastic tub and rinse with clean water and dry. Some need a second treatment but it really works...
Ah that's a whoooole 'nother ball game Tom! You don’t want to mess with mold in the rafters or the ceiling. You have to use bleach and warm water on the rafters to clean them off because they are in the roof you don’t really need to worry about bleach staining the wood. With sheet rock or whatever you may call it, you can’t do anything to it if it gets to soak through. The best thing you can do is cut away the moldy sections and replace it with new. We ran into this with our ceiling and it was awful.
I had to cut out a 6’ by 10’ section of our ceiling to get all of it and it’s a pain because the boards come in 4’ by 8’ sections so that was fun lol. With your roof do you have proper ventilation so that air can breathe and it not get trapped?
As for the vinegar, that stuff is amazing! It’s got so many uses in the home. We haven’t needed to clean off rust from anything but we use it to clean all kinds of stuff like the washing machine, carpet stains, hard water stains in the shower and so many others. We have a gallon jug in ur cabinet at all times lol.
Its not a few days later, so the end result we still have to wait for :) I was wondering if in the end, the dark/black areas are gone and will show the wood again in its natural colours? But I suppose you need a few days for this to know for sure :)
If it was only the wood, then maybe still ok. Hopefully she wouldn't through you into the woods because of the large amount of mold {LOL}
When all turns out well on the Mold front, what are you planning to do with these pieces of wood? Create some furniture? Or send it to the oven or fireplace {LOL}
Burn the wood?!? Are you joking? This stuff is absolutely meant to make some furniture lol. We aren't entirely sure yet what we will be making but the stuff is beautiful!
With the small round ones we will be making some small low tables probably, most likely two for us and one for family member. The fourth we will keep as a spare. The really big piece will be a table or a really nice bench. Not specifically sure yet but we also don’t have a lot of room in our current house so it’s in the planning stages for now.
The wood looks good so far! I looked at it earlier today and saw no mold but it’s not fully dry yet. I’ll give it another 24-48 hours before I check it again I think. No rush here!
My wife might have had me throw it away if it was bad and she saw it lol I try not to let her know though because I’m confident I can get rid of it!
Nope, not at all {LOL}
The wood is indeed beautiful! It definatelyt requires a super beautiful oven to burn it, otherwise you would not give the wood enough espect {LOL} 🤣🤣🤣
Would be cool to have it outdoors, you need some garden or rooftop thingy though.
I suppose your wife is not reading your post on HIVE then :)
Anyways... Wish you (and your wife) some great days ahead of you
Being that I mill many hardwoods, mold is always a concern of mine. With all of the lumber I cut, I'll sticker it right away. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the term sticker, but here is some wood that I recently milled, and you can see what I've done when allowing the wood to dry. Stickering allows air to flow through the boards and the result is mold-free wood.
I have also used this product to remove mold from wood, it works great! Just in case the mold returns, you may want to give this product a try. You can purchase it in 16 oz spray bottles or a gallon container.
Thanks for checking it out my friend! The big disadvantage I have is that it's drying inside the house in a spare room, not outside in the sun where I want it to be. I do have it layered though with little pieces of strapping between the lumber!
I'll keep that stuff in mind, thanks for the recommendation. Hopefully this takes care of it! I saw good results earlier today but still a little damp so it will take a bit.
Given you have lots of experience with it, how long will a really wet piece of lumber take to dry indoors before we can use it? We are thinking 2-3 months. It's been 2 weeks already I think.
Here's the original post, being a wood lover yourself hopefully you can see some awesome pieces! Mill post
I hope you had a great Christmas. After reading your reply, the first thing I did was to read your mill post.
Against The Grain, this family-run business was sure a great find. I could see how you would have a hard time picking out the pieces to purchase. The ambrosia maple round is just beautiful. I also see that you purchased a slab of black walnut, or is that butternut I see loaded into your car?
Storing lumber inside works. The key is to make sure the temp is not too high. If the wood dries out too fast I'm sure you know what happens, this is especially true with rounds.
Freshly milled live timber dries at the rate of about an inch a year, so drying time depends a lot on the thickness of the slab. Of course, creating optimal drying conditions speed up the whole process. I know that is a lot of time. Different species dry at different rates. All coniferous dry in less than half of the time of deciduous trees.
Depending on when the lumber you bought was milled, it may already be dried to a great degree. All of the slabs I mill, I date so I can keep track of how far along they are in the drying process.
There is a big difference between a slab being wet from the weather or being moist from the resins and natural saps in the tree.
A slab of wood that has been drying outside in the elements for several years will have expelled much of these saps. Mother Nature may have soaked the slab many times, but once it is kept in a dry warm place for even a few weeks, it will be pretty dry. Working on a project, and then having it split or cup is always a bummer. The moisture content you are looking for is between 7% - 8%. I have a moisture meter that I use, they are relatively inexpensive. For testing the moisture in 6/4 or greater, a prob type moisture metes allow you to take readings towards the center of the slab.
I must say, I was a little surprised to see so many beautiful pieces of lumber just sitting out in the weather.
Air drying already takes a lot of time.
Good luck with the projects you have planned.
Here are a couple of posts I recently did, Ambrosia/Spalted or Blackline maple
https://hive.blog/hive-123046/@thebigsweed/i-get-a-woody-over-wood
https://hive.blog/hive-123046/@thebigsweed/rescue-9-1-1-i-hope-i-got-here-in-time-i-know-you-have-been-waiting-awhile
What a great reply thank you! I need to read this in more detail but it sounds like you have great experience in this I could learn from!
Hope you had a great Christmas! I'll reply again later!
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More than happy to be of help, and any help that I can offer, just ask. Thanks for the engage tokens, greatly appreciated!
ENGAGEtokens.The prime step is where the technicians address any moisture or humidity concerns. For example, if a loose bathroom fan duct is running into an attic, the fan duct may be fixed. If the fix is easy, the black moldremediation company may take on the repair by itself.