How To Do Things Right

So you believed the salesman when he told you that teak wood furniture required no maintenance at all. The real question is was the cool-aid cherry or grape.

The reality of the situation is that if you don’t mind you teak furniture looking dingy gray with mold and often moss growing on it you are good to go. However if you want your teak to look like it did when you unpacked it, there is a bit more that needs to happen.

A realization that raw unfinished teak does not look good for very long is a pivotal conclusion. There are some sealing finishes for teak that will look good for a year or so and then they begin to peal off and you have to sand the rest off before you start re-coating. This repeated sanding will eventually reduce you teak to dust!

Further, several of the teak cleaners available at your friendly neighborhood marina or grocery store have either sodium hydroxide or sodium hypochlorite (chlorine bleach) in them. Both will damage the surface of your teak wood by attacking and weakening the micro-fibers that hold the wood together.

Using a water water based degreaser to remove the gray teak resin is a much better solution and it does not damage the wood before coating the teak with what ever you choose to use. Most of the teak coatings are sealers. They do not allow the wood to breath, and as a result, will eventually blister and peal off at least in sections. There are now several teak finishes that do breath. These products are generally made of water based polymer resins that when dry are gas permeable.  This allows the water vapor (that is produced when the sun shines on the wood and finish) to escape without generating the small high pressure pocket of water vapor between the wood (that does not breath) and the finish.

For as long as there have been words printed on paper mold has been busily trying to undo what man has done. And until recently man or library scientists have been fighting the good fight and for the most part winning. And thought we may be winning the price has been very high.

Additionally, those who work in libraries are also paying a very high price especially if they work amongst the stacks and stacks of books in the storage area that are covered with mold. They often the develop mold allergies that cause all sorts of apparently unrelated health problems.

Up until 2000, mold remediation consisted of Lysol spray, vacuum cleaners with HEPA filters, respirators and hours and hours of manual labor. The results were marginal at very best. Using stronger chemicals to actually kill the mold and spores are liquid and when the solvent evaporated, the powder left was poison and spraying any liquid on paper documents cause damage of its own.

Using the old standard ozone has some very negative side effects like making leather book bindings brittle and crack, oxidizing the binding cord and bleaching everything in sight.

In the December of 2000, Pat L. Weaver-Meyers, Wilbur A. Stolt, and Barbara Kowaleski wrote a paper titled “Controlling Mold on Library Materials with Chlorine Dioxide: An Eight-Year Case Study” that was published in the ” Abbey Newsletter“. Their problem was apparently so sever that they were willing to wipe the books with chlorine dioxide dissolved in water to kill the mold and it worked.

They followed up with a product produced by Aseptrol Technology that produced very small amounts of ClO2 that was catalyzed by the humidity in the air. This product is now very hard to get and was not an efficient or cost effective way to produce ClO2 even in very small quantities. BASF acquired Aseptrol Technologies and dropped the CLO2 gas product line in favor of a water based version.

In recent years, new materials and new thinking has been applied to the problem of producing chlorine dioxide. This effort has resulted in the product available on this web site called OdorXit ClO2. It is available in 4 packet weights ranging from 5 grams to 50 grams and 2 gas production rates. For the purpose of library uses, the slow release products are the appropriate products.

The slow release products produce ClO2 for 20 to 30 days depending on the humidity and when appropriately sized for the area being treated, there is no odor. If an over sized packet is used, a slight chlorine bleach smell can be detected. The remedy is to put the offending packet in a ZipLoc baggie for a day and then place it back in service.

OdorXit CLO2 5 gram packet

The packets measure as little as 2.5 x 2.5 x .25 inches to 3 x 4 x .375 inches. The active ingredients are sealed in a Tyvek packet that has a blue border (the seal). The seal is very special in that it breaths small quantity’s of air containing water vapor and breathing out the resulting ClO2 gas. This Tyvek packet is shipped in a water vapor proof sealed mylar packet which must be removed to activate the process. Additionally a clear peal and stick pouch is supplied with each packet to mount the packet is any convenient place. Since the packets outgas for only 20 to 30 days, it may be necessary to replace them occasionally. The spent packets can be removed and replaces indefinably.

Note: It is not necessary to replace the spent ClO2 packet just because it has expired. Because ClO2 is so effective a killing mold fungus and spores, re-growth and re-population is very slow and based on the ability of the air handling system to filter out new spores floating in the air outside the treated area.

Rubbermaid 60 qt covered tub storage unit

In order to remove mold or smoke odor from hard bound books, minimally you will need a plastic tub with a cover or a metal locker with several shelves and a door that can be closed. For doing more books at a time, a normal closet can be used.

• Stand the book(s) to be treated on end so that the pages can be fluffed open.
• Place the books so that the covers are open between 45 and 90 degrees and about 1 inch apart.
• Stick the self adhering pouch on the side of the tub or near the top of the locker
• Tear open the Mylar outer package without tearing or puncturing the inner Tyvek packet of a 5 gram Extended Release packet for a tub or locker (bigger packets are available for treating larger open areas.)
• Place the Tyvek packet in the pouch
• Use a very small battery operated fan to stir the air in the tub.
• Install the cover or close the locker door without knocking the books over.
• Remove the books in 24 to 48 hours. All the mold will be dead and needs only to be wiped away with a soft cloth.

Stackable clamp hangers

For removing mold and/or smoke from comic books, papers, reports, etc. metal cloths hangers work really will. Even the clamp and multi clamp hangers work really well. Just hang them on the hanger bar, place a CLO2 packet in the upper part of the closet and use a small personal fan in the bottom to stir the air around

The packet will continue to release small amounts of chlorine dioxide for 20 or 30 days during which time the books in the tub or locker can be replaced with new ones for treatment.

Note, when the blue border around the packet has turned white, the packet is finished or nearly finished producing gas and should be discarded in an outdoor garbage container.

If you have questions, call the experts at 1-877-636-7948 or visit the website.

You are probably wondering how we find out how to do things right. The bottom line is that most of the time by doing things wrong several times. The result of this activity is to find ways of doing things that get the desired outcome. That being said, getting the right outcome does not always mean the path to the outcome was the shortest or best way, it is but one of many ways to get it right.

If you are looking for the best way or cheapest way or fastest way to do something, it may take sever attempts to hone your proceedure and even then expecting it to be the fastest or cheapest or best way is a streach. Often the cheapest way is very different from the fastest, and the best way to do anything correctly. So focus on one and go for it. When you find something that works, this is a great place to share it with the world.

Martin Meyer, web host and administrator