Black mould

I have done a most foolish thing. In the autumn I boarded the inside of my summerhouse with sterling board (a sort of cheap soft plywood) to give it extra strength. Over the winter I stored plants in it and congratulated myself that I no longer had condensation dripping from the ceiling. However today was so lovely that I had a clear out in there, and noticed that all the condensation that I couldn't see was inside the sterling board, which now had spots of black mould all over it.

My question is, is there a simple method that will remove these black marks? Will strong bleach do it, and will it leave white marks on an otherwise light brown stained sterling board.

On reflection, I should have sealed it. But I have had the same sterling board in my garage for five years with no such problem - obviously because the ventilation was better and I had not had condensation from wet plants and soil.

 

Try scrubbing it with bleach well diluted in water. It probably won't come off without leaving some staining, but unless you are much attached to the wood, is that such a problem?

 

The bleach is okay and will kill it off but as Aaron says it will have stained now, ordinary household bleach is fine, if the stain is on the other side ( the side you don`t see) it`ll be fine sealing it when it`s dried out I would imagine.


I think the condensation would just run down and start affecting the side walls/windows though with out the unsealed board to absorb it. And that`s just too technical for a mere girl lol.

 

Id forget bleaching it and roll on thinned down woodstain, itll cover the mould and prevent it reocuring. sadolin classic thinned down four parts paint to one whitespirit is what id use, l the smell/ vapours from sadolin are quite low so and will go after a couple of days.

 

Agree, woodstain will seal the wood, but it won't get rid of the mould stains. A thorough scrubbing might though!

 

Yeah but what about the dripping?


My greenhouse roof drips so ......................................

 

I only worry about the cleaning (once a Hotel Housekeeper...!) But yes, attend to the dripping too (bucket to catch the drips?)

 

Thank you all for your comments and ideas. Please keep them coming.

I think the idea of a wood stain is good. But I suspect that it can't totally cover the black stains, so I must have a try with bleach first. Unfortunately, sterling board doesn't have a smooth surface and may not be very susceptable to a good scrubbing.

Just to make it quite clear. Condensation had obviously formed on the roof and walls, but I hadn't noticed it as it was soaked up by the porous board. Consequently the black mould has been growing in and on the damp board, on the visible surface.

 

You will kill the active moul with bleach but the stain will probably have penetrated the wood in which case it would need to be sanded out or re-stained as Pro says.

 

Well, with your encouragement, I tackled it today. I washed it over with bleach. I started with dilute and ended up with undiluted. I am not sure that the bleach did much, but some of the black was on the surface and washed off quite easily.



The original mould is on the left panel. The right is after washing. It certainly looks a lot better, but you can still see spots where the mould has penetrated the board. Luckily the sterling board is naturally mottled - so it hardly shows. And perhaps a bit of coloured stain at a later date will hide it even more.

Again thanks for all your help and comments.

 

It looks a lot better, you can hardly see any of it. Once it has a stain on it you won`t notice it at all.