Mold Beats Bleach

What’s the one thing that most of us think cleans and disinfects everything you cover in it? Chlorine bleach. Some new evidence suggests that chlorine bleach isn’t the great cleaner that we all think it is and one of the most common misconceptions about it is that it kills mold. Bleach is good to clean a number of things and to preserve the whiteness of white clothing and other items, but as far as being a disinfectant, it doesn’t measure up.

Unless the mold is located on a non-porous surface such as a hard counter top or a kitchen sink, bleach won’t really do anything to get rid of the mold. You can’t get rid of mold with bleach on surfaces like sheetrock, wood, furniture, or any other surface that isn’t hard and solid. Mold often grows inside walls and even if you clean the mold off of the surface of the wall, you still can’t get inside the sheetrock to completely kill the infection. It infests the entire depth of the board and it’s easier to just remove the sheetrock, clean the mold out from the inside of the wall, and replace the sheetrock with new and paperless sheetrock. Mold eats paper and if you put paper inside your wall, you’re helping it build a home inside your new one.

What we do know about bleach is that it does not play well with other chemicals. Many times when we’re on a budget and we’re trying to make the best of what we have on hand, we mix different household chemicals in order to make more cleaning solution to work with or we’re trying to make ourselves feel like the cleaner has become stronger, because it’s been combined with another. Sometimes mixing household chemicals will do no harm, but it’s best not to mix anything with bleach, especially if it contains ammonia. Ammonia and bleach, when combined, will produce toxic fumes that can kill you if you’re not working in a ventilated area. There are better chemicals to use when fighting mold, so the best thing that you can do is stay away from bleach and never mix it with another ammonia-based cleaner. It’s not worth the risk.

The EPA does not define chlorine bleach as a disinfectant that kills mold. There is always a registration number on each and every product that will kill mold, but this label does not appear on any bottle of chlorine bleach currently in circulation.


Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Miami Residential Water Damage Restoration Contractors and
Orlando water Damage companies.