Mold Remediation & Prevention

Mold surprised us. We spent nearly three years reading about campervan conversions, six months slowly building out our van and taking small trips to test each new addition, addressing every problem and every creak and squeak until all were eliminated, and mold still surprised us.

In late January, we were sent up to the Portland, Oregon area for work. After spending a couple of weeks in the muggy, rainy, humid environment, we escaped back to warmer climes, but the damage was done. We kept noticing a feeling of dampness in our mattress, so we peeked underneath and were horrified to find that mold had started to grow and had penetrated our unfinished plywood bed platform. The combination of the cold, wet environment plus our warm bodies at night created moisture, which became trapped between the mattress and the platform. Coupled with high humidity, the wood had no chance to dry out during the day before the cycle continued the next night.

Mold!!!

Luckily, I had some family in Phoenix, our next destination. We had a driveway to work in and a guest room to sleep in while fixing our mold issue, which I am forever grateful for. Grabbing some Ajax with bleach, a mixture of hot water and vinegar, and respiratory shields, we scrubbed the shit out of the bed platform and managed to remove most of the little black streaks in the wood.

We killed the mold by scrubbing with a bleach product then wiping up with vinegar and warm water.

We gave everything time to dry out completely, then sealed the entire bed platform with Kilz. This served two purposes: it stopped any remaining mold spores from escaping and continuing to grow, and prevented moisture from penetrating the wood and causing the same issue over again.

We sealed the wood with Kilz to prevent future mold growth.

The underside of our memory foam mattress was saturated with black mold spores and we were unable to save it. Fortunately, we had already been using this mattress for about six years, so didn't feel too terrible replacing it. We upgraded to a Tempur-Pedic Tempur-Topper Supreme, and absolutely love it. It did not off-gas and smell weird like our cheap Costco memory foam topper, was fully enclosed in a protective cotton cover to prevent the foam from damage, and added a little extra firmness and support.

I am always amazed at how densely packed the memory foam mattresses come! It'll never be this small again.

We also bought a 3D mesh product called Aire-Flow Moisture Barrier which sat between the mattress and the wood to prevent our brand new mattress from sitting in moisture if we continued to have issues. This theoretically allowed air flow under the mattress to dry out any excess moisture, but I was skeptical of how well it would work. Our bed was set up with a wall on one side and a blanket covering the remaining three sides, so there really wasn't any air exchange happening underneath the mattress.

A view of the 3D mesh product. We peeled off the scrim (the thin white material) for extra airflow.

We kept an eye on things and although we had no further moisture issues in the desert, as soon as we headed back to the Midwest in early April and were back in a high humidity environment, we found actual pools of water under the mattress each morning! To help improve air flow, we drilled several small holes in the bed platform.

We used a cordless drill and a hole saw bit to add holes every few inches across the entire platform.

Finally, we woke up the following morning to no moisture under the bed. When we checked under the mattress each morning for a couple weeks and continued to find no moisture, we were content with the final solution.

Final solution - Kilz wood platform with airflow holes, then 3D mesh, then memory foam mattress.

On the plus side, at least we learned why box springs exist!


Lesson Learned: Ensure proper airflow under the mattress for moisture to evaporate. Add holes to a plywood platform, use slats instead of solid wood, or use a box-spring style separator.