MHS Framing and Mold Infestation

In recent years, mold infestation has emerged as one of the most insidious threats to the home - and one the building and insurance industries have had a very great difficulty addressing. Mold infestation is a very serious health hazard and homes which succumb to it become totally uninhabitable even though structurally in perfect condition. Mold infestation is the direct result of the common choice of materials and building practices applied to wood frame housing. It is a product of an obsession with cheap polymer based composite materials and high thermal efficiency. Mold infestation occurs when laminate materials such as wallboard, plywood, chip-board, and oriented strand board (OSB) become host to molds in the interstitial spaces between laminate layers. Molds feed on the glues and cellulose which bind many composite materials together, this becoming a particularly favorable environment for them when combined with trapped humidity as a result of using plastic 'house wrap' products, sprayed foam insulation, and polymer paints.

Once one wall in a home is 'infected' by mold it will freely spread from one piece of plywood, OSB, or wall board to another wherever they come in contact with each other, quickly taking over an entire home! There is NO effective means of abatement for this. Once a wood frame structure is sufficiently infested with mold, the only solution is complete demolition and incineration of the house! No surprise, builders and insurance companies have become very reluctant to address this problem because of the huge costs this represents - not only in terms of home losses, but also in terms of medical expenses for residents over an extended period of time.

Conventional wood frame construction offers no defense against mold infestation other than seeking to carefully manage humidity levels during construction.

Homes that retain the 'breath ability' common to earlier forms of construction are rarely prone to mold growth, but virtually no builders in the US have such skills anymore. Therefore, this problem is anticipated to get progressively worse during the coming years. When using OSB-based SIPs and conventional wallboard products, MHS is still prone to this hazard. However, it has two very important forms of defense that wood frame construction lacks: 1. MHS aluminum frame members function like a fire-stop to the spread of mold between walls, and 2. the ease of replacing infested wall sections without great difficulty or expense. Even in the event of massive contamination, the aluminum structure of the MHS home is itself unable to harbor mold and so is always recoverable.
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