Repair Mold Damage In Books

If you’ve suffered water damage and one of the items are your books, there are some necessary steps that you will have to take if you want to prevent mold from growing on them.

You first have to work out which books have suffered little enough damage to be saved. For those books that are completely ruined by water, or which are not valuable enough to save, discard them immediately. For those books that contain valuable information that you think you will want at a later date, photocopy the pages and then discard the originals. For those books that you will want to save, freeze the books. Mold cannot grow when it has been frozen.

Air-drying the books may be an option, but do so following these stops:

• Fan books open and stand on top or bottom edge; never stand them on the front edge.
• Stand books on driest edge first to provide support. As the book dries turn it upside-down to the opposite edge every few hours.

Place a sheet of waxed paper larger than the pages between the front and back cover and adjacent page before standing on edges. Replace the interleaving as it becomes saturated.

When the book is no longer wet, but still cool to the touch, close and place on a solid surface with a slight weight to keep distortion to a minimum. Check frequently to ensure that no mold is growing.

Repair Mold Damaged Books

If you have not moved quickly enough to prevent mold damage in the first place, or if the books have been stored in a damp environment and have become mold damaged over time, there are some steps available to you to perform mold damage restoration.

Mold damage on the cover or spine of the book can be addressed by removing the cover of the book and retaining the pages within. If the mold is heavy but has only affected the dustjacket then your restoration may simply be a matter of removing the jacket and discarding it. You will have to do a thorough inspection of the inner pages of the book to ensure that the pages have not also become mold damaged. If you hate the thought of coverless books in your bookshelves, you may have to decide on getting the books professionally rebound.

If the mold damage on the cover is only light, you will have to remove the mold by first brushing the mold from the cover. You will then be required to sponge the cover down with a water, bleach and detergent mix. The idea is to destroy the mold spores that may be left behind, so after washing down the cover, leave the book out in the sun to completely dry.

The more difficult mold restoration of books comes when dealing with mold on the inside pages of the book. It is very likely that books with mold damage on the pages will not be salvageable but there are some steps to take to try.

Firstly, brush off any visible mold. Follow this up with a light sponge with the water, bleach and detergent mixture over the contaminated area remaining very careful not to wet the pages too much. Leave the washed books out in the sun, pages open, so that they might dry out completely. This process should be completed page by page as necessary.

Whether or not you want to tackle this kind of mold damage restoration will depend on how valuable the books that are damaged are and how badly you need the content contained within.

As with all mold repair work you should be aware of the safety issues involved and make sure you have equipped yourself with the proper personal protection equipment.