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HVAC Ozone Systems

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Ozone Effectiveness Against Mold

  • ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning): “Ozone controls surface mold on packages and walls, and reduces scale development and decay. The presence of ozone . . . . significantly reduces the occurrence of mold.”
  • Refrigeration Service Engineers Society (RSES): “Ozone is one of the purest and most powerful oxidants and germicides known.”
  • University of Minnesota: A 1999 study conducted at the University of Minnesota found that both ozonated air and water inactivate mold, rendering the mold cells harmless.
  • Ozone is Used in the Medical and Food Industries: “Ozone can be generated by electrical charges in air and is currently used in the medical industry as a disinfection technique against microorganisms and viruses, as a means of reducing odor, and for removing taste, colour, and environmental pollutants in industrial applications (Kim et al., 1999). In 1997, ozone was recognized as being generally safe (GRAS) for food contact applications in the United States (Graham et al., 1997; U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 1997). [In addition] the mixture of  ozone and carbon dioxide [gases] has potential for the control of storage pests”, [such as insects in stored grain] reported  a scientific article published at http://entomology.eajbs.eg.net/pdf/vol4-num2/2.pdf

Ozone Outperforms Traditional Disinfection Treatments

Ozone is an effective antimicrobial oxidizer that can be safely applied as a disinfectant/sanitizer wherever traditional chemical or thermal sanitation methods are used. It is used in either as a gas, or dissolved in water and used as an aqueous solution. Ozone is validated to kill all known food and human pathogens, as well as safety-validated for facility workers and facility environments.

 

Ozone has been third-party validated by scientists since 1906 for a multitude of pathogens in an array of applications.  However, almost all validations are concerning the same pathogens that are considered critical to food safety. These include (but are not limited to): E. coli, Listeria, Salmonella, Staphylococcus, Campylobacter, Pseudomonas, Cryptosporidium, Bacillus, Aspergillus, Norovirus and Adenovirus.

 

Studies have proven that ozone is more efficient and has a higher oxidation potential than most traditional disinfectant/sanitizers (e.g. chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, peroxyacetic acid and chlorine dioxide), and its use eliminates the need to rotate sanitizers because contaminants cannot build a tolerance to ozone. Ozone is non-corrosive to facility surfaces, does not negatively affect the organoleptic qualities of food and leaves no residual (never needs a final fresh water rinse)

 

A High Output Ozone Generator To Kill Toxic Mold & Household & Pet Odors, plus Decontaminate Surfaces, Rooms, Furniture, and Buildings from Ebola, MERS, H7N9 Avian Flu, SARS, Tuberculosis, & Other Biological Health Threats

 

Ozone gas is a regular, two oxygen atom molecule (0²) to which an extra oxygen atom has been temporarily added by the ozone generator to create a three oxygen atom molecule, (ozone gas) (0³). This extra oxygen atom gives the molecule its ozone gas a very effective and powerful oxidizing power to kill mold spores, mold growth, and odors such as pet odors and smoking odors, plus decontaminate surfaces, rooms, furniture, and buildings from Ebola, MERS, H7N9 Avian Flu, SARS, Tuberculosis, and other biological health threats.

 

Ozone generators do not give off or produce any health-harmful chemical by-products. In addition, as a good mold remediation practice, we recommend that AFTER ozone treatment of rooms that the room walls, floors, and furnishings be thoroughly HEPA-vacuumed to remove all landed or deposited mold spores, bacterial, viruses, dust particles, and any other indoor contaminants

Ozone Generator High Quality Components

Most ozone machines use only the highest quality ceramic generator paddles, and not fragile mica or cheap ceramic with a tiny piece of stainless steel mesh glued on them. The ozone producing paddles have nickel-titanium printed on them, electrified to produce the highest volume of ozone possible.

 

Long life ceramic coating: the paddle surfaces are coated with a life extending porous ceramic glaze over the electrified nitinol which reduces the need for frequent cleaning and extend the cell life to nearly 5000 hours! Nitinol is nickel + titanium + -nol (from Naval Ordnance Laboratory, where it was created and first used in 1968). The ozone-producing parts of the ozone generators are the highest quality available on the market.

Ozone Blasting

The ozone blasting machines kill mold, bacteria, and bedbugs, and dust mites every where in your residence or other building, including inside your heating/air conditioning equipment and ducts, plus inside your car or pickup truck!

 

Ozone HVAC Systems use the best, start-of-the-art ozone generators to blast mold-killing and bed-bug killing high levels of ozone gas into moldy areas, such as inside heating/cooling equipment and ducts, crawl spaces, basements, attics, all rooms, plus inside your car or pickup truck to completely and effectively kill mold growth and mold spores in such ozone-treated areas, as well as bed bugs and bacteria. Your vehicle can be mold cross-contaminated by mold spores on your hair, skin, clothing, and shoes, or from its own water intrusion problems or car air conditioning mold growth.

 

Ozone blasting should be both your first and last steps in the mold remediation process. In between your initial and final ozone blasting treatments, you should also physically remove and discard all mold growth and any building materials that are severely water and/or mold damaged.

 

When doing ozone blasting, there must be NO people, pets, or plants in the ozone-treated area. You use the unit’s timer to turn on and turn off the ozone blaster inside the treatment area, or you can use a long extension electric power cord that plugs in outside the treated area (plug and unplug the cord to start and stop the blaster).

 

High ozone blasting does not harm items in the room or area being ozone treated or the building itself if the ozone generator is run for less than eight hours at a time in a particular room or area. Damage from ozone can occur from extended use duration (more than eight hours at a time) and, not from the high ozone concentration itself.

 

Because most room air conditioners and heating/cooling systems have internal mold growth, every three months you should use your own high ozone generator to input large volumes of high ozone (at least 20,000 mg per hour of ozone) for one hour into the fresh air supply intake of each window air conditioner, as well as your heating/cooling system to kill all air conditioning mold and bacteria.

 

Air Purifiers, HEPA filters, ionizers, even home ozone generators will NOT kill mold. Mold can best be killed by blasting a large amount of ozone in an unoccupied room.  

Mold cannot be killed by air purifiers at tolerable ozone limits. Mold and bacteria can only be killed by ozone levels far above what is meant for human consumption, in unoccupied rooms and areas.

 

The Ozone HVAC Systems ozone generators alone can produce these high levels of ozone needed to kill mold without breaking your bankroll, at prices even a family can afford.

 

You can run a small ozone machine, or an ionizer, from now until the cows come home, but if the ozone never reaches high enough levels, the bacteria and mold will NEVER be killed or odors removed!

 

Since ozone breaks down back into pure oxygen very quickly, smaller units can never reach the ozone levels needed to kill mold and bacteria

Ozone Outperforms Traditional Disinfection Treatments

Ozone is an effective antimicrobial oxidizer that can be safely applied as a disinfectant/sanitizer wherever traditional chemical or thermal sanitation methods are used. It is used in either as a gas, or dissolved in water and used as an aqueous solution. Ozone is validated to kill all known food and human pathogens, as well as safety-validated for facility workers and facility environments.

 

Ozone has been third-party validated by scientists since 1906 for a multitude of pathogens in an array of applications.  However, almost all validations are concerning the same pathogens that are considered critical to food safety. These include (but are not limited to): E. coli, Listeria, Salmonella, Staphylococcus, Campylobacter, Pseudomonas, Cryptosporidium, Bacillus, Aspergillus, Norovirus and Adenovirus.

 

Studies have proven that ozone is more efficient and has a higher oxidation potential than most traditional disinfectant/sanitizers (e.g. chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, peroxyacetic acid and chlorine dioxide), and its use eliminates the need to rotate sanitizers because contaminants cannot build a tolerance to ozone. Ozone is non-corrosive to facility surfaces, does not negatively affect the organoleptic qualities of food and leaves no residual (never needs a final fresh water rinse).

Does Ozone Kill Mold?

Today, there are still some indoor air quality professionals that wrongly believe ozone does not kill mold.  Their error lies in that they 1) do not stay current with scientific research, 2) cite inaccurate and/or outdated information, 3) have never used ozone to kill mold, 4) allude to law suits against manufacturers of ozone producing devices without mentioning the positive outcomes of those lawsuits, and 5) lack understanding regarding the various levels of gaseous ozone and their relationship to efficacy.

 

There are also those who believe ozone is in fact, an effective antimicrobial. These include scientists who research ozone, the manufacturers of ozone producing devices currently used to kill mold, companies that use ozone as part of their mold remediation procedure, and the Federal Food and Drug Administration who has approved ozone as an antimicrobial agent.  The following is quoted directly from the FDA rule (21 CFR part 173) which became effective June 26, 2001:

 

“SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is amending the food additive regulations to provide for the safe use of ozone in gaseous and aqueous phases as an antimicrobial agent on food”

 

The logical question would be, “if ozone is not an effective antimicrobial, why can it be used on the very food we eat”?   Of course any thoughtful person would have to admit they have no answer for this question.

 

The University of New Hampshire and many other laboratories have done extensive research regarding the ability of ozone to kill both mold and bacterium.

 

Science has certainly proven that ozone kills both mold and bacteria, but to be fair, further elaboration is needed.  The natural level of ozone present in our air outdoors (.03-.04ppm) is necessary for the health and well being of every living thing on the planet, and is the primary reason we go “out” for fresh air.  These are the same levels reestablished by residential air purifiers to help maintain clean indoor air.  However, these low levels are only partially effective as an antimicrobial and must be maintained continuously for this benefit.

   

When ozone is used to effectively kill mold indoors, levels approximately 10 times higher are used.  These higher levels are used only for short periods of time, in temporarily unoccupied spaces.  Homeowners and mold remediators are now finding this method both expedient and practical for specific situations.

 

Ozone works well as an antimicrobial treatment prior to disturbing mold during remediation. This helps to prevent any inadvertently transported spores from being able to reproduce in other areas by deeming them nonviable (dead).

 

Ozone is also an excellent finishing treatment after a mold remediation project. Due to the fact that mold spores are microscopic, it is given that some spores will remain in the area after remediation and will likely be in areas that are difficult to mechanically clean. Because ozone uses air as the vehicle to find mold, it can treat any difficult area that airborne spores have traveled to: air ducts, air conditioner A-coils, attics, wall cavities, and crawl spaces.

 

It is important to understand that while ozone kills mold, it does not “clean” mold. Depending on the location of the mold, killing the mold may only be a partial solution.  When touched or inhaled, mold can remain allergenic, pathogenic, or toxigenic, even after being rendered nonviable.  Therefore, consideration needs to be given to the location of the contamination, and possibly the type of mold present.  Whenever mold is discovered inside a building’s heated envelope, whether viable or nonviable, it should be cleaned or otherwise removed if at all possible.

Answers for Objections To Use of High Output Ozone Gas in Mold Remediation

Here are the answers for four criticisms contained in several internet-posted articles.

 
  1. “The use of ozone generators is not the magic wand that is going to eliminate the tough work of mold remediation—the careful removal of mold-contaminated materials from indoor environments.”

TRUE. High output ozone treatment is only one of the steps for effective mold remediation. For example, an ozone professional not only effectively and safely removes moldy building materials from client buildings, but the company also does other non-ozone remediation steps such as hepa-vacuuming and spraying and fogging mold-killing EPA-registered fungicides.

 
  1. “Pets, indoor houseplants, rubber gaskets, plastic coatings such as electrical wire insulation, fabrics, artwork and other materials and contents in buildings can all be damaged by exposure to ozone.”

OVERSTATED.  During high output ozone treatment of a home or other building, and for two hours after treatment, there are NO pets, people, or live plants inside the building.  Some ozone specialists have experience with many mold remediation projects over the years worldwide is that limited duration ozone treatment (e.g., eight to ten hours at a time) has no effect on rubber gaskets, plastic coatings, artwork, or other materials. In addition, artwork and other items can either be removed or covered/wrapped in plastic sheeting during the ozone treatment time.

 
  1. “Exposure to ozone often leads to chest pains, asthma attacks and a number of related breathing problems. Permanent damage can occur from long-term contact, including degradation of the body’s ability to fight respiratory infections.”

MISLEADING.  Occupants are not exposed to breathing in ozone because there are no people (or pets) inside the building during the ozone treatment time and for two hours afterwards. After the end of an ozone treatment, you should immediately opens up windows and uses fans to exhaust ozone-containing air to the outdoors.  During such airing out, personnel wear special breathing respirators to filter out ozone during their brief airing-out work inside the building.

 
  1. “High levels of ozone are not sufficient to impact biological contaminants embedded in porous materials.”

TRUE.  Moldy porous materials such as drywall are removed and discarded in effective mold remediation. Mold growth is removed from wood timbers by either power wire brushing or baking soda blasting.  If the mold growth is too deep into the wood for surface removal, such moldy lumber is removed and replaced with new mold-free, treated lumber that has also been encapsulated (prior to installation) with latex enamel glossy paint containing the EPA-registered mold preventative Tim-Bor. The enamel paint adheres the Tim-Bor directly to the wood to protect against future mold growth and also serves to keep high humidity and water leaks from wetting the replacement timbers.

 

Mold-exposed clothing should be washed with borax laundry detergent, dry-cleaned (if dry cleanable) or discarded.  Similarly, mold-exposed upholstered furniture, bedding, and carpeting should be thoroughly HEPA-vacuumed and scrubbed with a mold removal agent such as boric acid powder, dissolved into hot water.  If there is visible mold colony growth in such items, they should be discarded with no effort to mold clean them.

Disinfectant Hospitals with Ozone

Ozone Used as a Disinfectant in Hospitals To Kill Germs and Mold.

 

Healthcare facilities use various methods of cleaning, sterilization, disinfection and hand hygiene…. Methods outlined in the Centers for Disease Control’s Guideline for Disinfection and Sterilization in Healthcare Facilities include the use of Ozone. Ozone gas has been concluded to be an effective disinfectant of almost all the known pathogens causing hospital (acquired) infections.

 

Ozone can be used as a powerful oxidant for sanitizing surfaces and floating air particles because it kills pathogens faster than many other oxidants and it decomposes back to oxygen, leaving nothing to clean up. The disinfection of Ozone is based on the high oxidative effect that is inherent to ozone on the cell components of target microorganisms.

 

Disinfection effects on cells and fungi, and inactivation of viruses are based on the fact that various biological cells and particles in microorganisms are directly oxidatively decomposed by ozone and undergo serious cell deterioration and destruction. This renders the microorganisms impossible to breed and survive. When exposed to ozone, cell walls rupture and disintegrate (cell lysis). Ozone has been shown to be effective in the disinfection of bacteria, molds, fungus, spores, biofilms and viruses

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