Mold & Vacuum Cleaners (HEPA)
HEPA Vacuum Cleaners Remove & Prevent Mold
Regularly vacuuming with a HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) vacuum cleaner helps to reduce allergic symptoms to mold and prevent mold from growing in your home.
Vacuums with HEPA filters remove 99.97% of the particles in a room that are 0.3 micrometers large and remove an even higher percentage of other particles. When vacuuming with a HEPA vacuum, mold spores (which are 1-20 microns in size) are trapped by the HEPA filter and kept inside the vacuum, unlike with non-HEPA vacuum cleaners where the mold spores pass through the filtration, out the exhaust and back into the air.
Hence using a HEPA vacuum greatly reduces the concentration of mold spores in the air of your home which are the cause of mold allergies. As well as removing allergy-causing mold spores, HEPA vacuums also remove other types of allergens from your home which could be causing allergic reactions such as pollen and dust mite feces.
Ideally you should vacuum your home once a week or more with a HEPA vacuum cleaner to minimize the amount of mold spores and other allergens in the air. Not only will less mold spores in the air reduce allergic reactions but it will also reduce the chances of mold growing in your home.
HEPA Vacuum Cleaners in Mold Removal & Remediation
Besides being useful for regular vacuuming to remove mold spores, HEPA vacuum cleaners are also vital during the mold removal and remediation process.
If you have found mold growth in your home, after removing the mold colony the final stage should be to vacuum the room with a HEPA vacuum cleaner. This will suck up any mold spores stirred up during the mold removal process. Surfaces where the mold was growing should also be HEPA vacuumed, if practical, to remove any residual mold particles.
For more about mold removal and remediation and the role of HEPA vacuum cleaners during the process go to:
Non-HEPA Vacuum Cleaners & Mold
If your vacuum cleaner is not HEPA filtered then it probably won't remove many of the mold spores in your home, apart from small amounts of mold spores that might be stuck to dust. In fact, vacuuming with a non-HEPA vacuum can stir up more mold spores into the air of your home as the spores get sucked up into the vacuum cleaner and then pass right through it and out the exhaust. Because of this you should never vacuum over a patch of mold growth using a non-HEPA vacuum.
If you want to purchase a HEPA vacuum cleaner you can expect to pay about $300 for a good HEPA vacuum. The HEPA filters in the vacuums have ratings such as H10 or H14 based on the percentage of microscopic particles they can trap. The vacuum with the higher number filter rating is usually more expensive but is also able to remove a higher amount of particles from a room.
HEPA Vacuum Cleaners & Mycotoxins
Although HEPA filters can remove mold spores from the air they are not effective at filtering the mycotoxins produced by toxic mold. Central vacuum systems can help to remove some of the mycotoxins from a home if the air is exhausted outside of the house. However most of the mycotoxins in materials such as carpet will remain embedded even after vacuuming. There is no way to remove all the mycotoxins from carpet and so carpet that has been in an environment with mycotoxins should be removed and replaced.