Eliminating mildew in old heart pine

[rosseason]

I have a whole lot of heart pine flooring which was kiln dried a few years ago. The company we bought it from is now out of business. Unfortunately, the wood was stored in a a dark warehouse for over 2 years. When we were finally ready to clean it and use it, we discovered it had a very musty odor. My wife cleaned some of the boards with a bleach solution and let them dry in the sun. They still had a musty odor. She did research and read that shellac would seal in the odor. Since we are using the wood on the walls, that seemed like a fine solution. I cleaned and shellacked a lot of boards and then moved them upstairs to put them on the walls.
We then noticed that the musty smell was still alive in most of the boards. Some have had 3 coats of shellac and still smell musty. My addition has been built with 3/4 inch spacing in the window frames and door frames and we have all this gorgeous wood. How do we get rid of the mildew (and odor)? Most of the boards have not gone through any of the cleaning/shellacking process.

 

[Glennbear]

Just MYTCW, I have a large stash of antique heart pine and fir boards which were sealed under multiple coats of poly for decades and when I plane them for use an odor appears but seems to dissipate with time. IMHO old wood just smells old. :dontknow:

 

[rosseason]

Just MYTCW, I have a large stash of antique heart pine and fir boards which were sealed under multiple coats of poly for decades and when I plane them for use an odor appears but seems to dissipate with time. IMHO old wood just smells old. :dontknow:

Lots of our family is very allergic to mold/mildew/musty odors. We cannot cover all the walls in the addition with musty wood. The space would be un-useable.
My wife called a company which mills and sells reclaimed wood. The suggestion from them was to kiln dry it again. Does anyone know if that would kill the mold and mildew. If so, does anyone know where we could take it to get it kiln dried? We have a large trailer. We may also have some extra wood.

 

[PeteM]

Try OxiClean. It worked for me.
http://www.yoosave.com/oxiclean.shtml

You'll have to sand the boards after cleaning.
A drum sander would make that an easy job.


p

 

[Bill Clemmons]

Ross, if you don't find someone w/ a kiln close to you, try contacting Scott Smith (scsmith42) on this site. He is southwest of Raleigh and has a kiln.

Bill

 

[scsmith42]

Hi Ross. My recommendation would be to kiln dry the wood, and the potentially run it through a jointer/planer or moulder to remove about 1/16" all the way around on the boards.

I'll send you an e-mail with my contact info.

Scott

 

[Jeff]

Scott does good work, but you also might contact Ivey Pridgen in Burgaw. Only 46 miles from you.

Ivey is a sawyer, but I don't know anything about his kiln drying facilities. :dontknow:

 

[rosseason]

Hi Ross. My recommendation would be to kiln dry the wood, and the potentially run it through a jointer/planer or moulder to remove about 1/16" all the way around on the boards.

I'll send you an e-mail with my contact info.

Scott

Thank you so much.
With lots of knots and some nail holes and cracks, I think the mustiness goes all the way through on some of the boards. We hope we won't need to plane the boards as they are already tongue and grooved and 3/4 inch thick and we have built all windows,doors and cabinets to accommodate 3/4 inch boards. Do you think we should clean the boards before we kiln dry them again? They definitely need to be cleaned before shellacking. We have not been sanding them. We are putting them on the wall and we like the natural look, but not the musty smell.
Have you had success killing mildew by kiln drying?

Thanks,
Ross

 

[scsmith42]

Have you had success killing mildew by kiln drying?

Mold and mildew are fungi. Most common fungi spores are killed in 1 - 3 hours at temperatures between 140F - 170F, which is encountered during the "sterilization cycle" at the end of a kiln run.

Mold and mildew typically develop during certain, early portions of a low temperature kiln drying session, and yes I have had success in killing the spores by sterilizing at the end of every kiln run.

 

[CrealBilly]

Doubt you'll ever totally get rid of the mildew unless you can bring the wood up to a ungodly high temp and maintain that temp for several hours. Scott Smith knows his stuff when it comes to drying and sterilizing wood... Anybody who can take about 2000 board foot of QS Sycamore from green fresh cut off the log to 6 ~ 8% with almost no degrade is a kiln master in my book. (Thumb up Scott)

 

[rosseason]

Mold and mildew are fungi. Most common fungi spores are killed in 1 - 3 hours at temperatures between 140F - 170F, which is encountered during the "sterilization cycle" at the end of a kiln run.

Mold and mildew typically develop during certain, early portions of a low temperature kiln drying session, and yes I have had success in killing the spores by sterilizing at the end of every kiln run.

That sounds very encouraging. Should we clean the wood before we kiln dry it? One of the reps from a company selling old pine said the wood would need to be at a high temperature for 24 hours. That sounded like overkill but I have never tried to get rid of mildew in wood and have never used a kiln so I am just gathering info at this point. My mother in law lives in Sanford and we have use of a big trailer. We need to sort through the wood and select the best boards to use.
Is there a time that would be good for you to kiln dry it? We may be in Sanford a couple of times this month. We will also be there for Thanksgiving, but I doubt that would be a good time for you.
I am retired so I can come at your convenience. If it would be best to clean the boards first, it will
take longer for me to get ready. It is a lot of wood.

 

[rex1927]

I would use them and not worry about it.That smell will go away .Thanks,rex

 

[scsmith42]

That sounds very encouraging. Should we clean the wood before we kiln dry it? One of the reps from a company selling old pine said the wood would need to be at a high temperature for 24 hours. That sounded like overkill but I have never tried to get rid of mildew in wood and have never used a kiln so I am just gathering info at this point. My mother in law lives in Sanford and we have use of a big trailer. We need to sort through the wood and select the best boards to use.
Is there a time that would be good for you to kiln dry it? We may be in Sanford a couple of times this month. We will also be there for Thanksgiving, but I doubt that would be a good time for you.
I am retired so I can come at your convenience. If it would be best to clean the boards first, it will
take longer for me to get ready. It is a lot of wood.

Ross, unfortunately I am not an expert on mold and mildew remediation, just a kiln operator.

Speaking as a non-expert, in addition to sterilization, if this wood was destined for my own home I would want to do something to remove the mildew stains, etc before installing it in my house. My options would be to either pressure wash the wood before kiln drying, or to run it though a moulder after drying and mfg it into slightly smaller flooring. My preferred option would be the latter one, as I have a general aversion to rewetting wood after it's been dried and a high pressure washer may remove part of the surface of the wood.

We need to speak either live or via e-mail in order to discuss quantities, scheduling, costs, etc. I sent you an e-mail with my contact info the other day; if you would like to pursue this please give me a call at your convenience to discuss further. Thx.

 

[truckjohn]

Kiln treating the wood again is probably a good idea to kill the mold/mildew....

Next thing I would do is to use a Planer to resurface the wood.... This way, the top layer of wood is physically cut off with a blade... I would not use a sander - as a sander can grind up the wood on the surface and smear it back into the wood.... Kinda like how you use a plane or scraper to remove wax - as a sander will just grind it deeper into the wood....

Thanks

 

[scsmith42]

Update.

Ross stopped by the farm this morning to drop off a few sample boards. He does indeed have a lot of mildew in his wood!

I'm including it in a short kiln run that I'm doing this week for fellow NCWW member Doug Wilberg, so that Ross can see what the boards look like after they have been through a sterilization cycle.

 

[CrealBilly]

Seeing Ross mentioned some in his family has allergies to mold, he may want to seek out a "moldologist" someone to test the wood to make sure it's safe, just to ensure everything is up to snuff, no phun intended... I only say this because my mother really struggles with mold allergies and can get quite sick from some of them. Lucky for me mold allergies didn't pass down to me.

 

[Jeff]

The entire family is allergic to molds and mildew I assume. :dontknow: Three coats of shellac didn't hide it from the family even after the clorox clean-up, etc. Coughing, sneezing, runny nose, and watery eyes?

IMHO you're playing with fire that has a very uncertain outcome and without guarantees that it'll work.
(No blame on Scott intended-he'll give it his best shot and he's good at it too :thumbs_up).

You could finish the process, install it, and rip it out later because the mold/mildew odor is still there. $ saved and Claritin costs for the entire family?

Buy new wood and use this offensive stuff for something else that's not within the home!

+/- $0.02