Risk assessment of mold growth across the US due to weather variations

Abstract

Mold growth in residential and commercial buildings poses a serious problem to various communities. There are several facets of the problem, the most prominent of which are chronic public health risks, business losses, and monetary and labor resources needed for mold containment and mitigation. In addition, there may be severe renovation work needed if the problem is left unattended. This paper describes a probabilistic framework for mold growth risk assessment on various construction materials and shows its application across a variety of climate conditions. Mold growth is contingent upon three ingredients: temperature, moisture, and nutrients. A specific construction material of interest represents the latter, while the other two are modeled through Monte-Carlo simulations. Mold growth is characterized by the mold growth index, which is tracked over ten years, with hourly time resolution. Analysis of the temperature and relative humidity empirical data revealed that these quantities are statistically dependent. Accounting for these interdependencies is crucial for realistic simulations of temperature and humidity and were numerically reproduced in the developed method. The developed framework allowed for realistic assessment of mold growth risk. It was applied across 60 US metropolitan areas in different climatological zones to quantify mold growth risk. The proposed framework allows for quantitative risk assessment of mold growth in different climatological conditions. Such a capability is needed for decision makers for timely mold mitigation, preventing health hazards, and avoiding large financial losses for emergency mold remediation and building repair.