You’ve tried cleaning it, you’ve used bleach, and you’ve scrubbed it off the walls—but it keeps coming back. If you live in Calgary, recurring mold is more than an annoyance. In addition to damaging your home, indoor mold can affect your family’s health and reduce indoor air quality.
We have helped Calgary residents deal with mold problems for more than 13 years. Here’s why mold may continue to grow in your home and how to know when it’s time to call a professional.
Why Does Mold Grow in Calgary Homes?
Calgary may have a relatively dry climate, but that doesn’t prevent mold from growing inside homes. Indoor moisture creates the conditions mold needs to thrive.
How Calgary Weather Contributes to Mold
Calgary’s fluctuating temperatures can cause condensation to build up inside walls, on windows, and in basements. Older homes with inadequate vapour barriers or insulation may experience this problem more often. When warm indoor air meets a cold wall or window surface, condensation can form and create ideal conditions for mold growth.
Calgary Chinooks also cause rapid temperature changes. As building materials heat up and cool down, they expand and contract. This movement can create small gaps that allow moisture to enter and become trapped.
What Causes Mold to Grow Indoors?
Alberta Health Services points out that mold grows in moist, wet, or humid areas. Common sources of moisture in a house include:
- Foundation seepage: Calgary-area clay expands and contracts as moisture levels change. This movement can contribute to foundation cracks that allow water to enter.
- Roof or window leaks: Storms can allow water to enter through the roof, windows, or walls. Ice damming can also contribute to roof leaks.
- Poor ventilation: Exhaust fans that do not vent outdoors can leave moisture from cooking and bathing trapped inside the home.
- High indoor humidity: Relative humidity above 50% can encourage mold growth. Even during winter, running a humidifier at high settings can create excess moisture and condensation.
- Unfinished crawl spaces: Unsealed dirt crawl spaces can release ground moisture into your home.
- Water damage or floods: Incomplete drying after a flood, plumbing leak, or sewer backup can allow mold to continue growing.
Wise Abatement Tip: Check your home’s relative humidity with a hygrometer. We recommend keeping humidity between 30% and 50%. During Calgary’s cold winter months, keep humidity toward the lower end of that range to minimize condensation. Keep relative humidity below 50% throughout the year.
Where to Find Mold in Your Home
Mold does not always grow where you can easily see it. Common hidden locations include:
- Drywall: Plumbing leaks or condensation can introduce moisture behind drywall and encourage mold growth.
- Attic: A bathroom fan that vents into the attic can introduce large amounts of moisture. Poor attic ventilation and water damage from ice damming can also lead to mold growth.
- Flooring: Water trapped beneath laminate, hardwood, or carpet creates a dark, damp environment where mold can thrive.
- Window and door surrounds: Winter condensation can seep into frames and surrounding drywall.
- Basement: Warm air from upper floors can cool as it reaches the basement, causing it to release moisture.
What Are the Health Effects of Indoor Mold?
According to Health Canada, mold growth inside a home can pose a health hazard. People may experience health effects when they breathe in mold spores and other compounds that mold releases into the air.
Who Is Most Vulnerable?
People at higher risk include infants and children, seniors, people with asthma, allergies, or lung disease, and people with weakened immune systems.
Common symptoms associated with indoor mold exposure can include a stuffy nose, coughing, wheezing, eye or throat irritation, skin irritation, headaches, fatigue, and worsening asthma symptoms.
If your symptoms become worse at home and improve when you leave—especially if you notice a musty odor—your home may have a moisture or mold problem that requires further investigation.
Wise Abatement Tip: A musty odor without visible mold can indicate hidden mold growth behind drywall, beneath flooring, or inside an attic. We use professional moisture mapping to help locate the source of the problem.
Why DIY Mold Removal Is Usually Ineffective
You Only Remove the Visible Growth
Mold can grow on and penetrate porous building materials such as drywall, wood, and insulation. Scrubbing the visible surface does not necessarily remove mold growing deeper inside the material.
You Haven’t Addressed the Moisture Problem
Mold will return if you do not fix the source of the moisture. A leaking pipe, roof leak, condensation issue, cracked foundation, or inadequate ventilation can all keep feeding mold growth.
Effective remediation identifies and corrects the root cause instead of simply cleaning the visible mold.
Cleaning Can Spread Mold Spores
Cleaning mold can release microscopic spores into the air. Without proper containment and negative air pressure, those spores can travel into other parts of the home.
Alberta Health Services recommends isolating remediation areas and sealing vents to help prevent contamination from spreading.
Asbestos May Also Be Present
Many older Calgary homes contain building materials that may include asbestos, such as drywall compound, ceiling texture, or vinyl flooring. Disturbing mold-contaminated materials that also contain asbestos can release hazardous fibres into the air.
Testing suspect materials before disturbing them helps reduce this risk. Wise Abatement holds certifications for both mold remediation and asbestos abatement, allowing our team to manage projects involving both hazards.
How Wise Abatement Handles Mold Remediation
Step 1: Detailed Inspection and Moisture Mapping
We inspect the affected areas, document our findings, and take detailed measurements. Our team uses moisture meters and infrared cameras to determine how far moisture has spread and identify areas where mold may be growing.
Step 2: Containment and Air Quality Management
We install containment barriers around the work area and seal vents and registers. We also operate HEPA-filtered negative air machines to help keep airborne spores from spreading throughout your home.
Step 3: Removal of Contaminated Building Materials
We carefully remove contaminated porous materials that we cannot safely clean. Our team bags and disposes of these materials using appropriate procedures.
We clean suitable hard surfaces with EPA-approved antimicrobial products, and our technicians wear full personal protective equipment during remediation.
Step 4: Fixing the Moisture Source
After identifying the moisture source, we recommend the necessary repairs. Depending on the cause, the solution may involve sealing foundation cracks, repairing leaks, improving ventilation, or installing or repairing a vapour barrier.
Correcting the moisture problem helps prevent mold from returning after remediation.
Step 5: Final Inspection and Clearance Testing
We conduct a post-remediation inspection and air quality testing to verify the results. We then provide documentation outlining the work our team completed.
The Wise Abatement Advantage: Why Calgary Homeowners Choose Us
Certified and Fully Insured
Wise Abatement is COR Certified and licensed by the City of Calgary. We carry $5 million in liability insurance and $2 million in pollution liability coverage.
13+ Years of Experience Serving Calgary
We have provided mold remediation services in Calgary and southern Alberta since 2012. We also serve surrounding communities, including Okotoks, Diamond Valley, High River, Nanton, Claresholm, Airdrie, Cochrane, Banff, and Red Deer.
Safe Removal Guarantee
At the end of every remediation project, we provide air quality clearance reports that document the results of our work. If mold returns because of an issue we are responsible for, we will fix it.
One-Team Solutions for Complex Problems
Our certifications in both mold remediation and asbestos abatement allow us to handle projects involving both hazards. You do not have to coordinate separate mold and asbestos contractors when both issues occur in the same area.
When to Call a Professional vs. When You Can Handle It Yourself
According to Alberta Health Services, mold remediation projects generally fall into three categories:
- Small areas: You can usually clean small amounts of mold yourself, such as one to three separate patches that each cover less than 1 square metre. Use appropriate protective equipment and cleaning methods.
- Medium areas: You may be able to clean more than three separate patches or patches covering 1 to 3 square metres each if you take proper precautions. For higher-risk situations, consider hiring a professional.
- Large areas: A professional should handle dense mold growth covering more than 3 square metres.
You should also call a professional when you suspect asbestos-containing materials, when flooding or a sewage backup caused the mold, when vulnerable people live in the home, when mold is growing in an inaccessible area, or when the mold keeps coming back.
Protecting Your Family Starts With a Phone Call
Mold isn’t just unsightly and unpleasant. If you leave the underlying moisture problem unresolved, mold can continue growing and spread into other areas of your home.
Wise Abatement’s certified team can inspect your Calgary home, locate mold growth, identify the source of the moisture, and safely remediate affected materials.
We provide mold remediation services throughout Calgary and southern Alberta.
Contact us at (587) 997-6500 for a free consultation, or request a quote online.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I Just Bleach the Mold and Paint Over It?
No. Bleach may not remove mold that has penetrated porous building materials. Painting over mold can also trap moisture instead of correcting the underlying problem, allowing mold to return.
Proper remediation addresses the moisture source and removes contaminated materials that cannot be safely cleaned.
How Long Does Professional Mold Remediation Take?
A small remediation project may take one or two days. A larger project involving multiple rooms or structural materials may take a week or longer.
After the initial assessment, we’ll explain the scope of work and provide an estimated time frame for completion.
Will My Home Insurance Cover Mold Remediation?
Coverage depends on your insurance policy and the cause of the mold.
Insurance policies may cover sudden and accidental water damage, such as damage from a burst pipe, while they often exclude gradual moisture problems. Check with your insurance provider to determine what your specific policy covers.
We can provide documentation related to the remediation work if you need it to support an insurance claim.
How Do I Know if the Mold in My Home Is Dangerous “Black Mold”?
“Black mold” is a colloquial term commonly associated with Stachybotrys chartarum. However, you cannot reliably identify a mold species simply by looking at its colour.
Regardless of its colour or species, you should take indoor mold growth seriously and address the moisture problem that allows it to grow.
Does Wise Abatement Test for Asbestos Before Starting Mold Remediation?
Yes. In older homes, we recommend testing suspect materials for asbestos before starting work that will disturb drywall, ceiling textures, flooring, or other potentially asbestos-containing materials.
Because Wise Abatement is certified in both mold remediation and asbestos abatement, our team can address both hazards when a project involves mold and asbestos.
