Prevent Mold with Essential Oils

in dtube •  7 years ago  (edited)


Last Winter while living in a Mongolian Ger, I experienced numerous health issues due to mold which had grown on the cloth and wood supports. This has caused me to become super vigilant about even the tiniest bit of mold starting to grow on my new Yurt.

After a week of heavy rain, I noticed that some little dark spots had formed on the walls where moisture had saturated the cloth. MOLD!!!

I’d heard that there were certain essential oils that prevented mold growth, so I did some research and ordered Clove Oil, Tea Tree Oil and Cinnamon Bark Oil. I then mixed it into a carrier oil called Caprylic Acid, one of the several oils found in Coconut, which is also anti-fungal!

I applied the mixture to the entire front door, and the bottom 12 inches of the wall going all the way around. It’s been several months now, with plenty of rainy days, and I’m happy to report that the treatment halted the mold growth completely!

This seems to be a pretty powerful mixture for mold prevention, and it smells amazing! In the future I’d like to experiment with reduced concentrations of essential oil to increase the efficiency when applying it to large surfaces.

Here are the oils used (affiliate links):



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Great idea. Why do you use Caprylic acid specifically?

A few reasons:

  • Antifungal
  • Liquid at room temperature making it easier to soak into cloth
  • It's my main calorie source, so I have a lot lying around

We have a yurt too and had issues on the wood supports and canvas. We ended up having to take it all down, scrubbed everything with bleach and washed it, sun dried it and painted the wood with a mold killing paint.. its better! These materials don't do well in humidity. Glad you found a natural approach before it got too bad...

I'm glad I got to it early too, because that all sounds like a lot of work! Do you remember the brand of the paint you used?

Kilzs paint from Home Depot.

Awesome, thank you!

I am a newcomer to the world of essential oils and I am in love with their wonders. I use them for making homemade soap, lotions, anti-bacterial ointments (especially the tea tree oil here).

I have never come across your page before, sorry I missed you.

If you are ever looking for a group, actually a community, of homesteaders/gardeners/self-sufficient like-minded people, I am the moderator of a group here... also the "un"official ambassador to the group.

let me know and I can post an invite link here for you!

Hi @goldendawne! Tea Tree Oil is miraculous, glad to hear you're making good use of it. Do you sell your homemade soaps, lotions and ointments?

I am interested in the group and would gladly accept an invite.

Oh this is great! Thanks for sharing!! We live in an RV, and get alot of condensation...so leads to mold. I am allergic to mold, so it is difficult. We are going to be trying this mix for sure :)

I'm glad you enjoyed it @elew! What part of the RV are you thinking of applying the mix to? I hope you'll let us all know how it goes!

We took out most of the carpeting, but there are still a few areas, like the cab (Class C here) and though we took out the dinette they had glued down the carpet there, so we have not been able to get it up yet. I am thinking mainly in the cab...but there might be more spots.

Thanks for this post. I found it very interesting, as I believe there's a huge yield of healthy remedies associated with essential oils.

This sounds like a great opportunity for some creative genius to formulate a spray-version of this recipe.

Again, thanks for sharing!

Peace.

Another possible benefit of applying this mixture to the Yurt is that it seems to be deterring rodents from trying to get inside to enjoy its plentiful bounty of warmth and food.

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Good stuff, thanks!