Mold and water damage are two of the most common issues that homeowners face, but fortunately, they can often be prevented with routine maintenance. Here are a few steps you should take to safeguard your property from moisture damage and mold growth: Check and replace wax rings on toilets. One of the most overlooked sources of hidden water leaks is the wax ring that seals the base of a toilet to the drainpipe. These rings degrade over time, which can cause small leaks that lead to mold, mildew or even dry rot under your bathroom floor. The best way to avoid this is to check these seals periodically and replace them every few years. Wax ring replacement is a relatively simple task—there are plenty of step-by-step video guides available online. Inspect and upgrade water supply lines. The flexible supply lines that connect your sinks and toilets to the water supply can also be a hidden source of leaks. Plastic or rubber lines tend to wear out faster, so consider upgrading to braided stainless steel hoses, which are more durable and reliable. Regularly inspect these lines for signs of wear or corrosion, and consider replacing them every five years to minimize risk. Seal and maintain window caulking. Windows are another common entry point for moisture, especially if the caulking or seals around them start to crack. Walk around the exterior of your home at least once a year and inspect the caulking around each window. If you notice cracks or gaps, recaulking can be a quick fix that prevents water intrusion. In more severe cases, your windows may need to be professionally resealed or replaced.

3 Ways to Prevent Mold and Water Damage

By Dave Keith Owner of NBE Property Restoration Diamond Certified Expert Contributor

Combating Mold in the Home

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Video: Combating Mold in Your Home

If you have a mold problem in your home, it's important that you learn how to deal with it as well as common mistakes to avoid. Today, we're in Santa Rosa with diamond certified expert contributor Dave Teeth of North Bay Environmental to learn more.

So you've got mold on your wall, what should you do? What I recommend is to put plastic on it. You could take a plastic garbage bag or you could take just visqueen, a piece of plastic cut out the square, and then put duct tape around and seal all the edges. That's what you should do, cover it up so it doesn't spread. 

What shouldn't you do? Don't put a fan on mold. The problem with putting a fan on mold, you may have good intentions that you want to dry out, maybe the wall is wet or the floor is wet, you're gonna dry it out but you're actually causing a lot of harm because think of a mold spore as a dandelion in your lawn and you're blowing those spores all over your house, creating a much bigger problem potentially. So I never recommend putting a fan on mold, the best way to dry out anything that's wet that has mold is with a dehumidifier.

One of the most common things I'm asked about is bleach, should I put bleach on mold and the answer is you can and but I want you to be careful about bleach because the byproduct of bleach is actually can be more harmful than mold. So the proper way to put bleach on mold is to dilute it to a 10% bleach to water solution, spray the bleach on the mold and let it sit for at least 10 minutes, however, if you have mold on drywall, you put bleach on it you can wipe it off but that's like pulling weeds in your lawn, you've got the weed but you may not have gotten the roots and that is why many times the mold continues to grow back in the county that we live in humidity level humidity levels can be more than 60% which is great for mold, so you can pull those weeds you can get the surface of it but the roots are still there in the drywall and the mold can continue to grow even without a normal water source that would have been there but with just humidity in the air.

Another question I'm commonly asked is should I test for mold I want to know what kind of mold I have and the answer is maybe. I don't always recommend testing for mold because from a remediation standpoint I don't care what kind of mold it is, it could be stachybotrys it could be Penicillium but from a remedial standpoint treating it is exactly the same and so I don't always recommend testing ahead of time because you might just be wasting your money if you could see mold it's probably mold so you need to fix it there are a lot of test kits that are out there and you send it off to a lab and you spend money and get it back and say yep, it's mold I could save you a lot of money by just saying it's probably mold let's get it taken care of and figure out the right way to do it to learn more from local top rated companies visit our diamond certified expert reports at experts diamond certified org.