Mitigating Mold in Military Facilities

A recent service-wide inspection of 70,000 Army facilities found that 2,100 of those facilities had mold issues, including active-duty barracks and child-care facilities, Army-owned housing, and office buildings¹.

In areas with centralized airflow, such as barracks, it can be challenging to enforce the good air-flow practices that can help reduce mold. Despite directives to the contrary, human nature can take over occupants’ best intentions. They can end up trying to control the environment to their liking with individual measures such as taping ducts closed or placing a wet paper towel on a thermostat.

How to Potentially Help Reduce Mold

Air-cleaning devices can be used to potentially help reduce mold at the source and help to improve IAQ in these environments. For example, Synexis®, which offers patented microbial-reduction technology, is an occupant-approved effective and low-maintenance option to help improve indoor building spaces. Synexis units help reduce harmful microbes in air and on surfaces. Synexis is the sole developer of the process by which naturally occurring oxygen and humidity in the air is converted to Dry Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) or DHP.

Facilities managers can add one or both of the following Synexis solutions to their buildings to help improve IAQ and potentially help to reduce mold indoors:

• The Synexis Blade can be added to existing HVAC ductwork without negatively impacting system performance. It can be installed in any size duct using available adaptors, allowing DHP to flow freely throughout a facility.
• The award-winning²  Synexis Sphere, a tactical plug-and-play solution, can be used to help reduce mold and help to improve IAQ in a single room. It can be placed where it is needed most and is designed to blend in most anywhere. The sphere can be easily moved from room-to-room, if needed.
• Both options are low-maintenance devices with only bi-annual inspection and catalyst replacement cycles.

Given the easy set-up and maintenance Synexis solutions offer, their implementation can potentially help federal facilities currently dealing with  mold issues. Per Synexis’ data, their products can reduce in-air mold up to 99.9 percent in two hours and can reduce surface mold by more than 90 percent in 24 hours⁶.

Procurement

Because Synexis solutions are already available in the GSA Schedule, which provides government access to commercial products and services at fair and reasonable prices, they can be quickly and easily purchased.

• Learn more about Synexis here or contact our federal team at tranefederalteam@trane.com
• Check out how Trane has helped customers implement Synexis in higher education and K-12 schools.

^{1 Beynon, Steve, “Army Finds Mold in 2,100 Buildings Following Service-Wide Inspection,” Military.com, March 27, 2023}

^{2 Synexis/Trane won the 2022 CBRE Award for Best Health and Safety Innovation Solution}

^{3 Synexis website data}