SALT LAKE CITY — Let’s face it, nature does have its supporters.

There are individuals who will tell you about their admiration for snakes, rodents, spiders and related critters. These are critters that the rest of us place somewhere between creepy and skin-crawling nasty. However, there are elements of nature that pretty much no-one will endorse. This list might include mold. Nobody wants mold and its effects in their home.

Given that most of us choose not to share our home with life forms with alien names like stachybotrys chartarum, penicillium or aspergillis, the question becomes this: How do we go about making sure that only invited guests are living with us?

Actually, it might be a bit easier than one would imagine. Here are a few simple tips to keep your money in your wallet and your family out of the hospital.

Drainage

Home inspectors routinely inspect homes with drainage problems — conditions that cause water to build up near the structure. For example, sprinkler heads routinely spray the home, surface slopes often force or allow water to drain toward the foundation, and rain gutters often drop water right next to the structure. In all of these scenes, water has an easy time flowing into the home, where the homeowner blindly plays the generous host to millions of mold spores. Two facts are certain: the mold will certainly never thank you for your kindness, and your family will probably not understand why it became so much harder to feel healthy. “Manage well your drainage, or mold will be your destiny” – it’s not a quote from Yoda, but it should be.

Your roof

Ah, the joys of having roof over your head. Thankfully, most of us have passed the era of the thatch roof, but flat roofs, shake shingles and old asphalt roofs can have the same kinds of problems. Flat roofs can be notorious for ponding water and sending it straight down into the home. Shake is also infamous for being unpredictable. Asphalt shingles can also have problems as they age, and all roofs can run water into the home if they’re not flashed right. If you’re comfortable doing so, you should inspect your roof at least once a year, and fall is the time to do it.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms can be a haven for thriving and happy mold colonies. Maybe you have carpet in the bathroom. If so, consider the cost of a routinely wet carpet from shower dripping, or better yet — boys that miss. If this is the kind of generosity toward nature that you’re looking for, you’re on to something. If not, consider losing the carpet in those rooms.

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While you’re thinking about mold in the bathrooms, consider this: What about overspray from the shower? Is it causing mold on the walls or ceiling of the shower area? What about water from the shower that finds its way outside the tub? All of the above can get into the walls or subfloor and cause major mold issues.

Plumbing valves

Most homeowners live their lives blissfully unaware that there are a number of plumbing valves, each of which need to see the owner’s shadow regularly. A valve that is not exercised will freeze in place, and will either not turn at all, or will leak when turned later. If you have a gusher, you will really have a very short list of things you want to know: 1. Where is the valve? 2. Can you turn it off? If you haven’t exercised the appropriate valve in 10 years, you may end up with a free swimming pool in your basement. At least it will be free to the mold colonies that are soon to follow.

The valves to identify are the water main and all the manual shutoff valves in your home. In older homes these are located under toilets and sinks. In newer homes, sometimes these are all located at the mana-bloc, if such a system is installed. Once again, if you turn a valve after many years of inactivity, it may leak. At that point the drip will be certain to cause the mold problem you’re trying to avoid.

Water heater

Few things bring a person to life better than a nice hot shower. By contrast, few things can make you want to kill someone more than a water heater that fails. Water heaters can leak from the pressure chamber, from the temperature — pressure valve, or from the drain valve. You should take a long, hard look at your water heater regularly. If it’s leaking and you ignore it, just plan ahead and get yourself a life vest — you’ll need it as you’re swimming through the basement.

Traps and disposal

Home inspectors often surprise homeowners when they look under your sink and find what you didn’t already know – drips from the trap or disposal. If you’re looking for creative ways to fill your kitchen with mold, look no further than a poorly tightened trap nut. Older disposals can fill the job nicely as well. These old dinosaurs can drip water into the sink beneath, and you’ll never find it because the damage is behind your dishwasher soap, cleaner, rags, Fido’s toys and the rat’s nest you also didn’t know you had. This can be inspected simply by running water for a longer period of time while you’re turning the manual shutoff valve.

Check your crawl space

Ah, the joys of the crawl space — dark, dingy, dirty and dangerous. While all of the above may be acceptable for a crawl space, there’s another word that’s not OK: damp. If your crawl space has any dampness, you have a guaranteed mold problem. Spider webs indicate presence of the kinds of bugs that feed on mold, so if your crawl space is web free, that’s a good sign. If it looks like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, you also have mold.

To be clear, there is no home, no room, not even any closet in any home in America that doesn’t have some mold. Antarctica? You might be good there. The bottom line is that mold is a part of the environment, both indoors and out. If you create the conditions that mold needs, it will find you — along with millions of its cousins and nephews. Ten dollars of prevention is worth $10,000 of cure.

Garth Haslem is a home inspector, a structural engineer and a radio talk show host. For more homeowner tips and tricks, listen to Garth on The Home Medic Show, Saturdays at 11 am on KSL radio or visit www.crossroadsengineers.com& www.homemedicUSA.com.

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