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At the store, we have a walk-in humidor in the basement. By this I mean we have a small room created by building a sort of wooden annex out into the public space, with shelves and one of those room humidifiers you can buy to help you breathe when you're sick, or keep your skin from cracking open in the depths of winter.
The humidifier rests on four pieces of wood and one plastic tray which are meant to keep it from directly touching the hideously rusty metal cart it sits on. Once a month, I take the humidifier upstairs, dump the water, and scrub it within an inch of its life. Every few months, I change the filter and check the wood for mold and fungus, which usually involves scraping it down with a razor blade and soaking it in bleach for a while.
Today I decided that the wood was so mold-infested and rotting that it had to die -- bleach was not going to cut it anymore, and if I sliced out the mold, I'd hardly have any wood left.
So. First I took the humidifier upstairs. Then I took the wood upstairs and threw it out. Then I scrubbed and scraped mold off the concrete floor, using a butter knife and some bleach-infused bathroom cleaner. Then I scraped about half a cup of rust off the cart, again using the butter knife.
At that point I realized that I needed clean wood to make a new support, and while it was easy to find two half-circle boards (we use them to reduce the volume of our coffee barrels), it was a bit harder to find two flat rectangular boards of the right length and thickness.
Fortunately, we have a storage room filled with the most fascinatingly eclectic junk... such as some rather long boards, and two saws.
I can use a saw. :-)
We now have not only a clean humidifier but also a refurbished base and cart. I consider that a half hour well spent. (Seriously, you do not want mold in a room where you keep expensive cigars and pipe tobacco. Loss of product is bad enough, but... even if it all gets lit on fire and therefore sterilized, do you really want people to be smoking mold?)
The humidifier rests on four pieces of wood and one plastic tray which are meant to keep it from directly touching the hideously rusty metal cart it sits on. Once a month, I take the humidifier upstairs, dump the water, and scrub it within an inch of its life. Every few months, I change the filter and check the wood for mold and fungus, which usually involves scraping it down with a razor blade and soaking it in bleach for a while.
Today I decided that the wood was so mold-infested and rotting that it had to die -- bleach was not going to cut it anymore, and if I sliced out the mold, I'd hardly have any wood left.
So. First I took the humidifier upstairs. Then I took the wood upstairs and threw it out. Then I scrubbed and scraped mold off the concrete floor, using a butter knife and some bleach-infused bathroom cleaner. Then I scraped about half a cup of rust off the cart, again using the butter knife.
At that point I realized that I needed clean wood to make a new support, and while it was easy to find two half-circle boards (we use them to reduce the volume of our coffee barrels), it was a bit harder to find two flat rectangular boards of the right length and thickness.
Fortunately, we have a storage room filled with the most fascinatingly eclectic junk... such as some rather long boards, and two saws.
I can use a saw. :-)
We now have not only a clean humidifier but also a refurbished base and cart. I consider that a half hour well spent. (Seriously, you do not want mold in a room where you keep expensive cigars and pipe tobacco. Loss of product is bad enough, but... even if it all gets lit on fire and therefore sterilized, do you really want people to be smoking mold?)
