Mold May Meet Its Match in New Building Products

With Insurers Less Willing to Cover Damage, Combating Moisture May Be Worth the Investment

There are better ways to build a house, especially if you want to keep mold under control, Charles Perry says.

"Mold is a huge issue for my clients, especially lenders, since they have 80 percent exposure to the problem through [the] mortgage, compared with the homeowner's 20 percent equity," said Perry, principal of Environmental Assurance Group, a lending and real estate consulting firm in West Hartford, Conn.

So Perry agreed with some clients' suggestion that he make the year-round house he was planning to build on the site of a lakeside summer cottage a showcase for mold-resistant construction techniques and products.

"I said I'd be happy to do it but that because this was my house, I'd establish the ground rules."

The result is a "mold-safe model home." Completed in September in Chesterfield, N.H., it was built in conjunction with the Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH), which will monitor how the house performs over time. Products and techniques were chosen based on Perry's research and PATH's input, he said. With his approval, PATH brought some manufacturers into the project.

Mold-prevention strategies are considered prohibitively expensive by a lot of builders. Perry begs to disagree, though he declined to put a price tag on the 3,000-square-foot, two-story structure.

"In a house costing a quarter of a million dollars, paperless drywall represents one-half of 1 percent, or $1,250," Perry said.

"I spent $2,500 on a commode and two light fixtures for one of the bathrooms. Is $1,250 too much to invest in an effort to get mold coverage put back into homeowners insurance policies?"

Mold thrives most often in moist conditions. Nutrient sources such as soil, dust and products that, like conventional drywall, contain cellulose or other dead organic matter can combine with moisture to provide the ideal environment for colonization.

Though indoor mold problems have always existed, they were aggravated by changes in home-construction techniques wrought by the energy crisis of the 1970s. Creation of energy-efficient houses in which the air inside is not regularly exchanged has been linked by the American Lung Association to a dramatic increase in asthma cases in the past three decades.

Correcting moisture problems is often the best way to stop mold growth. Depending on the extent of damage, though, cleanup costs can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. After several high-profile lawsuits over costs involving homeowners and insurance companies, many insurers dropped mold coverage completely from standard policies or began requiring special and expensive riders with higher deductibles.

Building products have been developed that resist mold or create barriers to the moisture it needs to thrive. Many of them were used in Perry's mold-safe house in Chesterfield, including: