# Fungicide or microban paints to inhibit exterior mold?



## pnlop1 (Dec 23, 2009)

Opps...I should have written "Zinssers" (not Messmer's) Mold & Mildew-Proof Exterior Paint.
Penelope


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## ccarlisle (Jul 2, 2008)

You know it always helps to tell us where you are located, as some problems and many solutions will be clearer if we know the surrounding circumstances to your problem. 

Not knowing if you're in a humid climate or not, I can only toss out generalites such as this one: if you have mould on the exterior, say under the eaves, the you must have more of a problem than just the addition of microban will handle. It may solve the cosmetic issue for a while but you.re just avaoiding the problem if you do.

Mould need humidity, low airflow, and food to grow with. What are you providing as a food for moulds? cellulose, paint, stucco? what? If you're outside how come there is so little air movement that provides almost 80% relative humidity that helps moulds grow? 

Rather than mess around with the paints. have you tried bleach?


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## pnlop1 (Dec 23, 2009)

Hi
I live in Los Angeles, and the weather is pretty dry, so the exterior mold is a bit of a mystery (Morning dew?). I attach some pictures. Im re-stuccoing the entire outside (with smooth stucco), and have the option of boxing-in the eaves and covering them with stucco, or repainting them--Im afraid that boxing-in the eaves will just hide mold growth inside them. FYI: there is no attic above them. Im trying to figure out the best option and Im open to suggestions. {I also asked about boxing-in eaves within the roofing section--sorry for the redundancy}
Thank you
Penelope


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## housepaintingny (Jul 25, 2009)

Bleach and water will remove the mold/mildew spores, but there are some natural remedies such as using baking soda or vinegar. I would use simple green paint prep, mold, mildew remover its biodegradable, green, won't harm you, pets, or plants. I would use that in combination with a pressure washer, then scrape the substrate as needed, prime as needed using a quality primer such as SW problock, caulk as needed using a quality acryilic siliconized caulk, followed by a quality 100% acrylic paint. One of the positive properties of a 100% acrylic paint is that it has mold/mildew inhibiteds in it already. I would use SW Superpaint. Nothing for nothing but consumer reports does not test a lot of products and they don't test a lot of SW products. I would use SW exterior Superpaint over any product that Consumer Reports rates as being good.


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## poppameth (Oct 2, 2008)

I deal with Davis Paint quite a bit. They are a small regional Virginia company who also happen to be the Microban distributor for the area. Their Microban products have been top notch for interior application. They have yet to make an exterior version, claiming that it adds quite a bit to the cost of the product and doesn't really work very well at all in comparison to interior application. It'll keep the spores from multiplying and spreading but on the exterior of a house spores just land on it all the time so you don't really see that much difference. If you have conditions that allow those spores to take hold to begin with, the Microban is just going to keep them from spreading as fast, not keep them away completely. They've had better luck with a Zinc modified product they've had for years.


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