Braking the Mold

"The mold was huge," said Barbara Jemison, who serves as board chair for the county-owned Community Center. "We found a mess."

Due to water damage from Hurricane Arthur in July, the building was a swamp of mold and mildew.

Barbara told me that Hyde County sent over a company from Greenville to take air samples inside and outside the Community Center. They found 18-22 different types of mold, including the toxic kind. Not surprisingly, the saturated structural burlap of the building's ceiling and walls provided a fertile ground for the funky fungi spreading into the plywood and insulation. The HVAC's air handler pans were filled with blown-in insulation that held water like a sponge. Barbara has the official mold expert's report, but I just took her word for it. Our mold was off the charts. It was Level: Ewwww, yuck. It was disgusting and unhealthy. And now it's gone!

"They removed all the moldy material and sprayed the place," Barbara said. "The place was always damp and used to smell damp. Now it doesn't anymore." 

"The mold was a blessing in disguise," said county manager Bill Rich. "We had to gut the building." 

Gutting it meant that the former dance hall got all-new walls, insulation, and wiring.

"We found live wires loose in the walls," Barbara said. "And some charred insulation." 

Not only is the Community Center now free of toxic mold and electrical fire hazards, the toilets are no longer in danger of falling through the rotten floor. There are new tiled floors in both restrooms – and great acoustics! 

The building will be cooler/warmer (depending on your preference) now, too. Though they are using the same HVAC systems as before (two units), they've moved the air return for one unit so that the climate control will work more efficiently. It will perhaps be not quite as sweaty on the dance floor at next year's Firemen's Ball! 

Remember how it required an advanced degree in electrical engineering to figure out how to turn on the switches you wanted? Or that even with a Sherpa guide to show you 'round the breaker boxes, you still needed someone watching the lights saying "No, not that one. No, you just turned off the ceiling fans. Try the round dial. No? Really? Try the other one. Okay, got it!" 

Electrician Don Bachman (with lots of input) has streamlined the switches and made them almost too easy. Outside lightswitches will operate outside lights. The entryway lights can be turned on and off in the entryway. The stage lights are accessible from the stage. The restroom lights are on motion sensors and come on when the doors are opened. The new switches will be clearly marked and breaker boxes will stay closed. Where's the fun in that?

Also included in the renovation is a new bulkhead up by the stage. It's big enough to add a third HVAC unit in case we want one someday. The Community Center board also purchased eight new 5-foot diameter tables, and eighty plastic chairs to go around them. 

We can even go off the grid – the USCG donated a 20KW generator to be used in emergency power outages. The county will use the building as a base of emergency operations when the next storm blows in. 

County commissioners' meetings will soon move (from the school commons area) to the Community Center, where two-way video conferencing equipment will be installed.

All this and a new coat of paint! 

Funds had already been set aside for improvements to the building. Barbara and her board were granted $29,000 of Occupancy Tax money to replace the building's floor and re-panel a wall. They planned to close the building on September 1st for just three weeks. But the electrical system was damaged during Hurricane Arthur, and after that it became apparent that the mold problems were the most urgent issue. This project grew in scope (as renovation projects are wont to do), and the Community Center board ended up spending another $7000 they had in carry-over income. 

Now, there's no money for a new floor. "It's next on the agenda," Barbara said. "Mel Perez [who's doing the painting and paneling] will do the floor when we have the money."

Meanwhile, stop by the Community Center and inhale the clean, dry bouquet of new paint and fresh wood paneling – without a whiff of mildew.