# Mold on Drywall above the shower



## deadherring (Mar 27, 2012)

Hello,

I have a problem I am looking for advice on.  We have a shower that is in a relatively small and windowless room.  As you can hopefully see from the pictures, the sides of the shower are tiled about 3/4s of the way up the wall at which point it changes to drywall (which the ceiling is too).  Over a few months time mold starts to develop on the drywall.  we clean it off with mold removal but it ultimately returns.  We have a fan in the ceiling and turn it on when we take a shower but the mold shows up there anyway.

By now the paint on the ceiling seems to be cracking.  I wonder if it wasn't a mistake for whomever set up this bathroom to use drywall--should they have tiled on the ceiling instead?  What is the right way to fix this situation once and for all so there is no return of mold?  If the answer is to tile and anyone has a resource that explains how to do so I would be grateful.















Nathan


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## inspectorD (Mar 27, 2012)

Wash the walls to start.
The trick is that folks need to keep the fan on for at least 10 minutes after the shower has been turned off. Try to keep it on until the water vapor is gone and the walls are dry to the touch....otherwise, you get the same results.
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com...witch-enables-bath-fan-meet-ventilation-needs


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## joecaption (Mar 27, 2012)

Is the fan even the right size? Looks really small to me.
Also what happens once the moist air is sucked out? How long a run and how many elbows can make a big differance.
How big a gap is under the door can also be a factor. A fan needs make up air. To tight a gap, not enough air flow?


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## deadherring (Mar 28, 2012)

Joe and Inspector:

Thanks for the reply.  We keep the fan on--it has a timer on it that is set to 60 minutes.  What size fan should I have for that space?  And, put another way if I had the right fan should it do the job of removing the moist air from the room thereby preventing mold from accumulating, or...?

Thanks,

Nathan


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## nealtw (Mar 28, 2012)

The size of the fan goes by square footage and the better fan will require a bigger vent pipe. Your fan may do a better job if the vent pipe was bigger, so I would start there and as suggested the door may want to be cut off the bottom so you have a good inch under it.


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## Hailey_Stowers (Mar 28, 2012)

We have the same problem, except our walls are way worse :/ And when i try to scrub my walls, the paint just peels off. so very frustrating!!


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