Are you experiencing mold growth that is negatively affecting your building and health? If left untreated long enough, mold spores can become airborne, causing serious, long-term health consequences, especially for children, the elderly, and other mold-sensitive individuals. Investing in UV light disinfection technology with Farlite Solutions is a powerful tool in fighting against airborne mold spores year-round.
Mold thrives in a high-moisture environment, so areas with high humidity, standing condensation, or high temperature are going to be major mold breeding grounds. Within 24 hours of humidity exposure, mold can start to develop on drywall, carpet, and wood floors, eventually releasing airborne spores. Using a UV light disinfection fixture can offer a safe, reliable, and consistent method to help fight against mold buildup in your buildings.
Understanding Mold: Why UV Light Disinfection Works
Mold is a type of fungus, not a bacterium. It grows in multicellular filaments called hyphae and can be spread through airborne spores or by physical contact. This means it can grow and spread on a vast variety of organic material, many of which can be found in buildings. Mold needs these elements to grow:
- Moisture: This is often found in the environment’s humidity. However, elements like leaks, condensation, or pooling water can also contribute to rapid mold growth.
- Food source: Mold needs to consume organic material to continue multiplying. This could be a variety of organic material, such as wood, paper, fabrics, or even dust.
- Oxygen: Because mold is an aerobic organism, it requires oxygen to grow. Many times, open environments like office buildings can contribute to this factor.
- Temperature: The majority of mold types need temperatures between 77 degrees and 86 degrees Fahrenheit to thrive. However, some specific mold types can also survive temperatures as low as 40 degrees.
- Time: Mold needs to be exposed to optimal conditions for a specific amount of time to duplicate. Depending on the conditions and the type of mold, it can begin to develop in a matter of hours. In most cases, visible mold will be seen within a matter of days.
- Darkness: Oftentimes, mold grows fastest in dark, continuously damp areas. This is one of the primary reasons mold is commonly not found until it has already developed into a large colony of cells. UV light disinfection is one of the best ways to battle this aspect of mold growth.
While there are many types of mold, the most common are Cladosporium, Penicillium, and Aspergillus. Most classifications of mold require the same factors to grow.
Common Mold Elimination Techniques
Mold prevention is tricky due to its rapid formation. Like all aspects of building maintenance, prevention is key to saving you time, energy, and money. Typically, mold is cleaned with a variety of cleaning products to remove the physical spores. This can require intensive scrubbing, chemicals, and even specialty cleaning companies if the growth is severe enough. Because of these factors, it can be difficult and expensive to clean mold colonies, making preventative measures the much more sensible approach.
By investing in UV light disinfection technology like Farlite Solution’s UVPhasor® fixture, you can help eliminate mold growth in your building, as well as prevent future colonies from forming. The Farlite UVPhasor works constantly to greatly reduce the spread of mold and the amount of dangerous spores in the air. This leads to higher-quality air in your building and requires less extensive mold cleaning.
The Role UV Light Technology Plays in Improving Air Quality
Air quality is crucial when it comes to ensuring worker comfort, improving productivity, preventing illnesses, and thus, customer confidence. When it comes to large-scale office buildings, it is common for there to be a multitude of air pollutants and infectious germs circulating, making UV light disinfection a valuable addition to your building’s cleaning regimen.
Airborne mold spores can greatly impact the quality of your building’s air, leading to respiratory issues, severe allergies, or asthma attacks. Long-term mold exposure can lead to serious health problems like lung infections or chronic bronchitis.
Farlite Solution’s UVPhasor fixture works to eliminate airborne mold spores by using UV light to deactivate aerosolized spores, keeping them from spreading throughout the air. What makes this disinfection process highly effective and unique is that it offers continuous, autonomous air disinfection. This not only helps eliminate airborne mold spores but also helps consistently improve your air quality.
How Does UV Light Disinfection Work?
UV light surrounds us every day, yet it still seems mysterious to some. There are several different types of UV light waves that affect our environment in different ways. The main types of UV light waves are:
- UVA: This type of UV light has the longest wavelength. It makes up the majority of UV light that is sent to our atmosphere from the sun. UVA light is known for penetrating deep into the layers of skin, causing tanning, wrinkles, and some forms of skin cancer.
- UVB: Unlike UVA light waves, UVB light waves are much shorter, causing them to be partially absorbed by our atmosphere’s ozone layer. This form of UV light is the main cause of skin cancer development and sunburns, but also significantly contributes to the vitamin D synthesis process that our skin needs.
- UVC: Farlite uses UVC light in its UVPhasor technology because it has been used for decades to deactivate pathogens and disinfect both drinking water and air systems. This type of UV light has the shortest wavelengths, and when not artificially made, is almost entirely absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere.
UV light disinfection is a physical cleaning system, unlike many other methods that rely on chemicals. The fixtures, which are placed near your building’s ceiling, shine the UV light rays upward, catching the airborne mold spores as they float through the air but preventing exposure to occupants below. The light damages the spores’ DNA and RNA strands. This not only deactivates the spore but also prevents it from further reproducing and causing a larger amount of mold.
This is possible because of how Farlite was able to safely engineer the UVPhasor to safely project this powerful UVC light, allowing the UVC’s short wavelength to penetrate the spores and eradicate them.
Using UV Light Disinfection Monitoring for Your Building’s Mold-Prevention Regimen
Integrating UV light disinfection into your building’s mold prevention lineup can lead to numerous benefits, including cleaner air, happier employees, and lower cleaning costs. But understanding the specific techniques that can make your fixture more effective is critical.
Farlite Solutions is proud to offer 24/7 Cloud Monitoring services for UVPhasor users. This system uses artificial intelligence to continuously monitor your fixture, collecting data that can help improve each fixture’s effectiveness. This could include HVAC air speed, temperature, humidity, UVC light intensity, power usage, and even human presence near the device. This data is used to customize your UVPhaser fixture for your unique needs without you needing to do a thing.
UV Light Technology for a Healthier, Mold-Free Office Building
For many people, air quality is a major concern. As more research is done on the negative effects of airborne mold, eliminating that concern is crucial. By investing in UV light disinfection, you can help stop the spread of mold and ensure your building’s air is healthy and safe.