How to handle huge amounts of mold in my wall

Question

I have big problems fighting the mold in my wall.

First of all, where I live my concrete wall is entirely covered with nothing more than paint in the exterior and inside. The building is surrounded by walls, so it's in the shadow all the time, it's on the first floor and there is a concrete gutter surrounding it, so basically i'm saying I almost cannot fix the feed source of the mold.

Sunny days when I clean with bleach I can forget about it for like 1-2 weeks or a month when it's very dry, but rainy days it's like mold every 3 days, I even can see the water that comes through my wall.

I called some construction dudes to paint my room and outside with mold protection paint (I don't know what brand), and it worked for months, but when winter came, the mold nation attacked again.

I've been reading that mold is even capable of dealing with UV radiation as I found in this paper. Also is said that bleach can help but cannot penetrate the wall and I can assure that because I've used pure sodium hypochlorite (I had to sleep on my couch for like 2 days).

So I came up with the next alternatives which I want to discuss:

1. Use an hydrophobic coating in my wall
2. Cover my wall with asphalt
3. Put a fake wall and forget about the mold and let it grow
4. Modify my DNA to be able to live with mold and avoid the health problems.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

When you say concrete walls are you indeed referring to a poured wall of concrete as they do in many overseas countries or are you referring to cinderblock walls back poured with concrete?

If you mean cinderblock walls: Building a carwash we would thinset over the cinderblock walls and then apply a coat of Watertite LX. It has been about 10 years now and we have yet to see any mold or water seepage through the carwash bay into the guest walk areas, in which both slides are bare cinderblock.

It is guaranteed for 15 years when used according to the directions.

Link to product and I do not work for Walmart. :P

Answer 2

The extent of the water infiltration or just condensation that you have is really unclear to me at this point, but since that waterproofing/mold-protection paint didn't help (assuming it was for real)... some pointers:

• ideally water shouldn't get into a concrete wall. This means good sealing from the outside ideally done at construction time e.g. here or here... failing that have it done/refurbished later. I'm not going to get into any details/steps since this is not DIY stuff for most people. You need to have a drainage system in place to get water away from your walls as well.
• I'm a bit skeptical about this, but "negative side" (meaning interior only) waterproofing is possible with the addition of some cementitious sealants.
• Finally, Chile [the location from your profile] spans a lot of latitudes... does it rain or snow in winter where you live? If you only get mold and water on the wall in winter and where you are it snows rather than rains in winter, that suggests to me more of a condensation issue... In any case, I'm not sure how good you are at distinguishing condensation forming on the wall vs water infiltrating through the wall. If your walls have little thermal insulation (value), i.e. they are cold to the touch... then it's probably mostly condensation you're dealing with. Get a hygrometer and compare inside and outside humidity to know for sure. Dealing with condensation requires adequate ventilation (particularly of your furnace), a dehumidifier etc... To quote from a HVAC article: "In the winter, a leaky house tends to be a dry house, and many are leaky. However, if a house is tight, the normal indoor-generated moisture can become trapped, leading to high indoor humidity levels."