135: Mold Prevention In Kitchens

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to today's show. If you're one of the 130 million people that are dealing with Sirs Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, or other conditions that are impacted by mold on a daily basis, and you need to learn how to eliminate that exposure, then you're in the right place. My name is Brian Carr, and you're listening to Mold Finders Radio.

All right, welcome, everyone, to another episode of Mole Finders Radio. So today we're going to be doing another prevention focused episode, all right. Which I think is important, because as nice as it is to be able to find all the problems, wouldn't it be nice to just, like, stop them from happening in the first place? And the answer is yes. All right, so that's what we talk about. We're gonna be focused on kitchens. Today I'm gonna try to go through all the main rooms that happen in a house. So when I think of a house, there's kind of like a base type of room. I call them a finished room. They have walls, ceilings, floors, cabinets. There's drywall, there's whatever. Right. But you can see that in any room, Any. Any dining room, living room, bedroom, like, all those types of rooms are all basically the same room. They're just in a different place in your house. Okay, now there are other areas in your house are a little different. Kitchen's one of them. Bathrooms are something, you know, attics are different. You know, different areas are. Have, like, their own little nuances and stuff. And what the point of me kind of going through this is, is to get into those specific things in those areas. So today is kitchens. All right? So when you're thinking about a kitchen, there's really two big differences in a kitchen than you're seeing anywhere else. There's sinks, which you could all see in bathrooms. So there's a tie through. So whatever we talk through here is going to apply to bathrooms as well. And there's appliances, right? So you got refrigerator, you've got dishwasher. Those are kind of your main two, like, water appliances. Appliances, right? Sometimes you have, like, water filtration units that live under a kitchen sink or something. So there's another water thing. So those are kind of the things. So what I'm going to do is walk you guys through sort of like what I'm looking at, what I'm thinking about in different areas where kind of the water pathways are, where the problems are potentially, and then what we can do to try to prevent that stuff. Okay? So the point Here is to make you aware of where the areas are and then talk about things we can do to stop that from happening so we don't end up having a massive mold problem that we need to get addressed. All right, so in a kitchen, we're going to start at the sink. I'm in my kitchen in my imaginary dream house, and my sink is here, and there's a backsplash. And then the backsplash comes up to a window, and I look out the window, and I'm looking at the beach. It sounds awesome because I'm looking at the beach, and I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing. I'm, like, splashing water all over the place. Like, I'm cleaning, but stuff's getting to the backsplash. Splash is getting all these places. And you know what? I'm in such a beachy vibe that I don't even care. Right. So here's the thing. You need to care. You need to care about that. All right, so we're going to work sink area, top down. So when I say top down, kind of above your cabinetry, so countertop level. And then we're going to look under the cabinetry. I'm going to walk you through all that stuff, talk about where the potential issues are, and then some preventative things that you can do on there. Okay? So top side, top side, you've got your backsplash. What is your backsplash? It should be hopefully, a piece of tile or stone, whatever your countertop is. Right, That's. That's not a porous surface. Should extend up the back of the wall, wherever your sink is. Okay. Now, if your sink is in an island, which is actually how my sink is in my house, I don't have a backsplash on mine. So that piece goes away. Most people have backsplashes. So there's a joint. Right. You have a vertical piece of your counter, which is your backsplash, and you have a horizontal piece of your counter, which is your counter. Right. What happens where they. There's a joint there. Okay. What do they do with the joint? They put grout over the joint. Why do they do it? To stop water from going back there. Okay, so this is the first area we're going to focus on. This isn't very different from bathrooms, for example, so there's some consistencies between bathrooms and kitchens just from the type of build material that's used, the type of stuff that's in there. Here's the thing with grout, guys. Grout is Not a forever thing. Okay? Grout can deteriorate. Grout can cross crack, it can break. There can be pinholes that get created in it. These all become pathways for then water to get into and possibly behind the grout. Okay? So the first thing that we need to look at, go in your kitchen and look at all the grout around where your backsplash meets your cabinet. If there are gaps or cracks or holes, it has to get fixed. If you're not fixing that, then you're just asking for water to go back there and create problems under your sink or even behind the wall behind the backsplash that you wouldn't be able to see. Okay? So remember, when it's not prevention, it's all about stopping water from getting to all these places. That's really the concept here. That's what we're trying to do. So that's the first thing. Make sure that all that's done. Now, if your grout is separating, there's really kind of two reasons it happens. First reason is it's actually deteriorating because water keeps hitting it and water breaks it down and breaks it down. Because that's what happens, right? That's why grout is not a forever thing. The other reason it can be happening is some sort of settlement that's going on in the house, right? So like if the counter's pulling away from the wall that it's attached to, then you can get a crack or a separation in the grout. Okay, That's a problem for a couple reasons. One, if your house is settling to the point where it's literally ripping apart from itself, then that's a pretty significant problem because that grout line is, I guarantee you, not the only area that's separating in your house. And everywhere that you crack and pull apart your house is an area where there could be water intrusion or other things, bugs, this, that just like whatever, just like other stuff. So you, you don't want that happening. Like, your foundation has to be solid. If your house is settling, you have a foundation problem. Okay. Now, you know, they may say, oh, the foundation's settling. Settling means, though, that with the way they built the original foundation, it's not flat anymore. Probably starting to slightly tilt one way or the other. And that's creating a lot of pressure on the house and it's literally ripping the house apart part. So you definitely want to be on top of foundation type of things because they have a pretty significant long term effect. So that's the first thing. So you want to make sure your grout's always good filled there reason why need to regrout. Right. And that's okay. You might need to take out old grout and redo new. In my bathroom, again, similar. Right. But in my daughter's bathroom, where the tub, she has like more of a tub. And then there's the tile wall on the side. I've been here for three years. Ish. I think in this place that we're in now and we've regrouted it three times. I actually think it's probably a bit of a settlement thing. But I have limited control over the foundation. Right. I haven't seen any issues otherwise. Maybe it's not a settlement thing. Maybe it's just how the tub was installed. That could be it too. It might not be a whole house settlement thing. They could have just installed the tub at like a weird angle. It's kind of pulling apart from itself. It doesn't fit, like, whatever. So as I start seeing that happening, I remove all the old grout and then I like will put new grout in as a way to try to keep that sealed. It's so important. Okay. So that's one thing to look at there. Now, on these backsplash areas, there's also the area on top of the backsplash. Some backsplashes run all the way up a wall. Right. And that's fine. Other black splashes, they run up maybe, I don't know, 4 to 6 inches. They have kind of like a lift on the back. And then after that is drywall. Right. If you're splashing water back there, you're not only splashing at the bottom, you're potentially splashing at the top. It could possibly be getting up to the backsplash at the top of it, and then it meets the drywall that's behind it. So how do you fix that? Stop splashing water so much. I mean, there's really no other fix for that. Right. So you have to be aware, and I think this is part of prevention. Prevention. You just have to be aware of, like, what happens. Right. If I'm washing dishes and I know that washing dishes creates some sort of splashing, then maybe I need to change the way I'm washing dishes to keep all the water more in the sink. Right. Because you can't fix water splashing on drywall after it's doing it over and over again. So the prevention is to stop doing that. Right. And this truly is the prevention for the bottom portion of it in the grout piece as well. The. The prevention is Stop splashing water there that's deteriorating the grout. And then obviously there's something else going on. Get that addressed. Right. So that handles just that little strip of backsplashes on the back wall there. So if water is getting up on the drywall, on top of it or getting underneath it, what happens? The top is easier. The drywall probably soaks straight into the drywall. You'll probably see bubbling stuff, staining. You know, all the signs of water damage on that piece up there. And if you are, that's a problem. You definitely want to get that tested up there at that point. Right. Because is there a problem that's getting behind you? Might be able to surface, swab, Test it. You might need a cavity test. It just kind of depends what it looks like. If it's getting under the grout where it meets the backsplash, then the next place that it's going to go is to the back wall behind there and down. And then it might also soak into the wall and soak up behind the backsplash. The reason we want to talk prevention is you start thinking about the cost to fix something like that. And you're now talking about taking your whole counter off. Right. Counters aren't cheap, so that's why it's so important. Let's stay on top of the sink area for now still. The next area is where your sink actually kind of inserts into your countertops. There's kind of two ways it happens. Most sinks, like in newer homes, the countertop is on top, and then the sink kind of sits down a little bit, and it connects where the top of the sink hits the bottom of the counter. That's how kind of the newer houses are. Older houses, it went the other way, where the sink laid on top of the counter. So those are kind of the two options. But either way, there's going to be a joint somewhere where your sink connects to your countertop. That is a joint. Okay. Typically what they're doing is they're grouting the same thing. All right? So same thing. Make sure that your grout is good. If it's in the sink area, man, water's going to hit it. There's no stopping water from hitting it necessarily. Necessarily. Right. So it's about being aware, being on top of it, looking at it, making sure that it's still there. If it needs to be regrouted, regroute it. Okay. So, yeah, there's that piece. The other thing that I actually try to do when I'm done every night doing Dishes after dinner is I'll take a towel and I'll wipe the grout line where my counter meets my sink, like so. Mine is like underneath the counter. So like, counter's on top, sink kind of comes up under it and connects to the bottom of the counter. So like, if I'm looking at my sink, there's like a joint around the side and that's where the grout is. I actually dry all around that when I'm done. If any water got there, let's get it dried up. Let's not have it continue to soak in, do any damage, right? So that's something you do on the prevention front. And obviously try not to like hit it directly with water, right? So point your water down into the sink. Obviously splash and stuff might get up there. That's why I dry it off afterwards. So that's that piece. Now let's go back in the sink. And you have your fixtures, you have your hot water, your cold water, your faucet, sometimes your dishwasher overflow sitting up there, right? So you can of have all that stuff. Right? All of those. If you think about what's happening there everywhere, where there's something like sticking out of your countertop, when your countertop comes, it's like a solid slab. They go look at the counters and it's like a solid slab. And then what they do is they come in your house and they cut it to fit, like your cabinets and to fit whatever. So you have a solid piece of material and then you're cutting holes in it in order to put your sink, in order to put your faucet. That means that every place that you've cut a hole is now a pathway for water to move. Because there's a hole there now, right? And so you're filling it and you're grouting it and you're sealing it. But if the seals go, if the grout, all the things I've just been saying, then it's a spot where water can get through. So like in my sink, for example, I don't have a handle for like hot and cold. I have like one faucet kind of thing sticks up. You know, you could pull the head down and spray or whatever. And then on the side of it, there's just like a lever on that one item. And then you can like turn it hot and cold by moving it. So I kind of have just one piece that's cut into and installed in the countertop. And then to the left of that, I have a little Button that is cut into my countertop that controls my garbage disposals, okay. Cause I remember, if you guys recall, I said that my, my sink is on an island. There's not a wall nearby anywhere. So they cut the hole for the button to control the garbage disposal directly into my countertop right next to my faucet, okay? So there's two holes that they cut into it. And then directly next to that is my dishwasher overflow where there's like a little thing that pops up and there's three holes that they cut into it. Okay? So you have three kind of things that are sticking out of my counter and they all, obviously they seal around them, but all of those areas need to be sealed. Okay. The same that you have to grout behind a backsplash and you have to grout under a sink, right? Like those need to be sealed. So keep an eye on those. And then the other thing that I do, literally every time that I'm done washing all the dishes at night, after dinner, by the way, if you haven't figured this out, my wife does the cooking and I do all the dishes. That's the deal. What I do is when I'm done, like I said, I wipe that interior connection where the sink meets the counter, but I also wipe around all of those faucet, the dishwasher overflow, the little button area, I wipe all around those to get all the water off of that too. Okay. Prevention. Get rid of the water, then the water can't cause the problem. Let's stop the water. Okay. But if you're at a sink, you can't like not use water. So you have realistic ways of like how we do this stuff. And that's how I do it. Okay? Okay. So that's kind of prevention on top. So now you get under the sink. So the first thing everybody usually thinks about is the plumbing line, the kind of U shaped pipe that's down there. Right. But that's not the first part. Right. If you go in your sink under your cabinet and you look up, you're looking at the bottom of your countertop, and that's where all the holes that I was just talking about, that's where all those pieces connected, right. You can look up there and see if there is water coming through. You can see discoloration on the plywood up there a lot of times, because the way they install countertop is plywood, and then they put your big fancy slab or whatever on top of it. Right? But if you look from the bottom side and you're looking up. So if you went in under your sink and you put your head under there and you turned around upside down and you looked up at the bottom side of the counter, you will see the water lines and like all that stuff that connects to those fixture areas up there. Sometimes you can see under there. If you're seeing that it's a problem. It's an issue. It's an issue. And why is it an issue? Because if water's showing through on the bottom side of the plywood, it's not just on the bottom side. It came from the top. Right. So if it came from the top, then likely you have water damage on the top side of the plywood where it meets the counter that was installed on top of it. There's no cleaning there. Right. Like the way to get rid of that is you have to get rid of your counter. You can't get to it it anywhere. So that's why it's so important to be on top of the prevention stuff. Especially in kitchen areas with countertops. The stuff isn't cheap. Gotta be on top of as much as we can. So you wanna look under there. All around those areas. You also wanna look like where the sink connects, see if anything's coming down. You can see a lot of that stuff. All right, now if you're looking under the sink, now let's say we, we kind of scan down and now we're still at the top of where the cabinetry is, but we're at the top where it meets the back wall. What's on the other side of that? The other side of that is the backsplash area we talked about first. Right. So if you have an issue coming from there, a lot of times what you'll do is you'll see water streaking coming down the top of the wall under your sink cabinet. Okay. And like goes up into the, to the countertop, basically. And that is telling you that water's coming down that way. That's what it's telling you. Okay. So again, by helping to prevent that from the top, you're stopping. So now let's talk under the sink. So those things we do see, they're not the most frequent thing we see. The most frequent thing that we see under sinks are bubbling or cracking or peeling or staining or even mold growing on the floor of the cabinet. Okay. Under the sink. This is where you put all your products. Okay. This is also, if you had a leak in that U shaped pipe that's under there, it's going to drip down there. Okay. But it's interesting. The drips are not always under that pipe. That's why he was bringing up these fixture things. Sometimes you see the drips toward the back of the S cabinet. And towards the back is not where that pipe is. Towards the back is where those fixture things are that I was talking about. And that's where those drip. Okay. So you can kind of tell sometimes by where the drip is on, like, where the water kind of came from, if it truly is a drip that's coming down by. Again, preventing the water from doing right under the sink. So, you know, it's kind of hard to, like, prevent a pipe from leaking. Right. I get that. Like, I don't expect everybody to be plumbers and, like, know how to do that. Honestly, I'm not a plumber. If you asked me, how do I prevent a pipe from leaking, I would say I have no idea. Right. Cause I don't. Other than having it looked at regularly and making sure that it doesn't leak. Okay, so what do we do instead? We protect the bottom of the cabinet from water in case water drips down there. There are inserts you could put under your sink cabinets. I have one under every sink cabinet in my house. Not just my kitchen, all my bathrooms and my sink cabinet. They all have one. When I first moved in, I was a little lazy and slow on getting them. And because of that, I actually had a leak in my master bathroom sink cabinet, my side of it. And I pull it open one day and I look and I see dripping. Because I pulled something out, and I saw that a box had been getting dripped on. It was coming from. Guess where it's coming from? The handles. Just like I was talking about in the kitchen. Except in the bathroom, there's a handle on each thing. You know, hot water handle, cold water handle. It was coming from the hot water handle. It was dripping down. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. For who knows how long. It was after we moved in, because I didn't see it before we moved in. Cause I looked. So it happened after that. But anyways, I had a box under there. Luckily, the box is what was getting dripped on. And the water never actually hit the cabinet. But, man, when I pulled the box out, covered in mold. Okay, this is what happens immediately then. Got all the inserts you need to do. So I protect it. So what does this insert do? It's basically like a rubber kind of thing. There's all. There's different types of them. Uh, the one that I got just so everyone Wants to know. It's is from a company. It's called Weathertech. I think it's weathertech.com when you first go to their site, it looks like a lot of car stuff, but then they have in the drop down menu there's something for like home in there. And then there's a sink one that you can get for under your sink. It's the one that I have under all my sinks. Um, what does it do? It holds up to, I want to say a gallon of water. So basically it's a, it's like an insert that goes under your sink cabinet and there's like a lip that kind of comes up on the edges of them all around the cabinetry. Right. So the back, the sides, all that stuff. Meaning that if water spills in there, the water will stay there. It won't get to the bottom cabinet floor, obviously because it's on top of it. But there's also like a lip up on the side a little bit. So it'll keep it from immediately getting to the sidewalls or the back wall. Unless it's like a really significant leak. Right. So from a protection prevention standpoint, I mean that is fricking awesome. I'm gonna say it was like 30 to 50 bucks for each one. I don't remember off the top of my head. A hundred percent worth it anyways. Prevention. There you go. Put that under your sink. If you do have a drip leak from a pipe, it's gonna fall on that. If your product bottles do leak, they're gonna leak on that. Guys, product bottles are sources of water. The primary ingredient is water. In all of those things. We really have to be aware that like, oh, it's a, it's a product ring from this thing that isn't a problem. That's not true. The majority product in that is water. If that thing is leaking and, and into the bottom of your cabinet floor, it's going to create mold problems eventually. So having that protective thing under there is great. So that's your sink area. All right, let's go to the other two main areas. You have your refrigerator. You have a dishwasher. Let's start at your dishwasher. So where do I typically see leaks in a dishwasher? It's usually out of the front of the dishwasher in one of the bottom corners. It's usually where I'm seeing the leaks out of them. Look down there. That's the first thing. Are you seeing staining or dripping or anything like that? That's the first kind of red flag if you're seeing something like that right now. Little pro tip. They're underneath your dishwasher. Also your refrigerator, too. Most of them anyway. You know, like, under your cabinets. Like. Like, you can't kick under them because there's a kick plate. There's a piece of wood down there. Well, there's the same thing under your dishwasher, but it's a little metal thing. There's usually two screws that attach it. You could pull it off. It does nothing to your dishwasher. Dishwasher still works fine, but then you can see under the dishwasher. Hey, that's what we want to do. We want to see under stuff. We want to see, like, what's going on. So you could pull that off. You could take a look under there. You could see what's going on under there. If you want to do some sort of, like, preventative thing, you could try to put a similar type of what I just explained for the sink cabinet. You could try to get something like that to go underneath that area of the dishwasher where dripping typically happens. You could try to, you know, do that to prevent it from getting to the floor to the cabinets that are next to it. The other thing with dishwashers, here's the deal. Dishwashers have a lot of water in them. There's gonna be mold growing in a dishwasher. There just is. There's really no way around it. Like, you literally run your dishwasher, like, every one or two days, and nobody is taking everything out and disassembling their dishwasher and drying all the components every single time. It's just not a thing that you're doing. So what does that mean? I would probably be looking at opening and cleaning and taking apart my dishwasher and cleaning it every so often just to kind of reduce the amount of load that continues to build up in there. The only time that I'm, like, super, like, oh, this dishwasher needs to go, is if I open it and there's mold growing, like, on the racks or on the door seals or something like that. Like, that's excessive. There's, like, a big thing going on. But I guarantee you, like, if you took out, like, the racks and there's, like, the thing in the bottom where, like, the water comes out, if you kind of pull that out, you're going to find some mold down there, guys. There's always something in the house. There's always something. You're never gonna have a net zero mold house Right. But it's just about understanding where these things happen. So part of the prevention that I would say, like, kind of prevention, is almost more of a maintenance thing when it comes to your dishwasher, which is making sure that you get that out, you clean those areas. If you want a lot of clean stuff and different products you could use, you go to cleanmymoldystuff.com I got a free download, how to clean all your stuff. There's different product suggestions and stuff in there, so you go grab that. But that's something you do for the dishwasher. The other thing with dishwasher, they have a water line that connects. It usually connects to the sink in some way. It's usually running from the dishwasher into the cabinet under the sink. So you'll see like. Like a white line that's under there. So that's another potential leak area. So you just want to make sure you're looking around those lines, make sure nothing's leaking under there. If it's leaking under the main sink area, it's fine because you got your rubber mat down there, so it's not going to do anything. Right. And then if you're able to pull that little metal cover off from underneath your dishwasher and look underneath, then you can look at that and keep an eye on that and see if anything's going on there. So those are a couple things for the dishwasher. Now let's get to the refrigerator. There's two different types of refrigerators. There's ones with water lines and ones without water lines, meaning you have ones that have, like, ice and water dispensers and ones that are just refrigerators. Right. So that's kind of your thing. Most of them have water and ice dispensers at this point in time. When you do that, there's obviously now a moisture issue, more of a moisture issue than you would normally possibly be dealing with in that area. So a couple things. One, first look at the area where your ice and your water actually come out. The dispensers, like, literally look up in there. I can't tell you how many times I've looked up. And there's literally just mold growing on those things. Great. Figure that out. Now, again, if you're listening to this, you're like, hey, I need the ice. I need this. I need that out of there. Like, I'm not gonna tell you not to do it. Right. These are just, like, steps you could take. Like, so another thing, you could keep the line there. I would Never drink water out of my refrigerator. But sometimes people want to use the ice out of it. The reason I wouldn't drink is because the water comes out of that area where all the mold was growing. Now you don't know if there's mold growing in the water lines back behind there. You don't know, right? So like the water coming through, it could be different. You know, all of my water comes through a Berkey filter. I run it all through there. I know it's filtered and it is literally a metal tube container. There's no rubber hoses, there's no anything. It's like a gravity filtration process. There's no standing water. Like none of that happens. So for me, I'm more comfortable like that. The water you drink is, is very important, just like the air you breathe. So it's just one of those things that I choose to do now. Other things happen. Refrigerators, they leak, right? Um, one, if you have a water line, they can leak. I think we actually either just posted something or I'm going to post something here soon that's showing an example. Pulled out a refrigerator, the floor behind the refrigerator or underneath it, water damaged, right? The refrigerator leak, Right. But it's not just the floor of the walls right next to it. We went to the backside of that, tested the wall on the other side of the refrigerator, there's a mold problem. When you're thinking about that, if you're talking prevention, like you do, you want as little like uncontrolled water situations happening that you can, right? That's why I disconnect my water thing. That way there's no more water running through there. So it's, you know, it's not like there's gonna be a leak from like the water line. Now the other area that refrigerators, they do create some moisture from condensation under there. Pretty confident that almost every refrigerator that you went to, if you went and actually pulled out the like pan under the refrigerator, there's probably gonna be some level of mold or bacteria under there. Again, you need refrigerators, right? So like you can't just not use your refrigerator. And like I said with the dishwasher, there's always some level of mold and stuff in the house. Even if you go through and find a bunch of it, there's, there's always something. But our bodies are meant for that in a way, right? So like our goal as somebody who is a mold sensitive person is to just reduce the over amount load of exposure in the house so you can reach equilibrium with the house. It's not to get it all the way to zero. It's impossible. That's your goal. You're never going to get there. But it's to reduce it 50, 60, 70, 80%. And if you have 80% less stuff that's being pumped into your environment that you're being exposed to, your body has now 80% less defending of itself that it needs to do. And that's how you start kind of rebalancing and finding an equilibrium with your house. Um, but under those areas, you could get those areas, you could pull that out, you could get that cleaned regularly, just like we talked about with the dishwasher. So those are some of the main areas in a kitchen where you see water issues and prevention things that you can do. I would say the majority of the things I see in kitchens are sink related and water around the sink related. I'd say that's probably 75% of all the things that I see going on in kitchens. The next most frequent thing is dishwasher leaks. And then the third most frequent thing is leaks around refrigerators. So that's, that's kind of how frequently we see stuff. So just be aware of that stuff. Put some safeguards in place around those guys. Do what you can to prevent the water from even hitting these different areas. Do what you can from a maintenance perspective to make sure that the joints and all those areas with grout are sealed well so in case water does get up there, it doesn't drip down and cause other problems. And if you can do that stuff, then you could prevent having a significant mold issue that then requires you to take out all your cabinets and to remove your countertops and to drop 20, 30 grand on a kitchen redo if we're just on top of it and doing the maintenance piece. So hopefully you guys find this helpful. I'll be doing some more of these, like I said. Hope you guys enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. If you did. I never asked for this, but hey, if you did, maybe like leave a review or something. Maybe leave like a rating on this on the podcast. I do a lot of recording, I don't know, 130 plus of these @ the time that I'm recording this one. So it'd be cool to get a couple more little stars and thumbs ups and little happy comments and stuff. I read all of them, so just so you know. All right, that's what I got for you guys. Thanks. Have a good one.

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