Most effective Mould Removal Products For Home Use

We have a big problem with damp and mould in our house. It’s not just in the bathrooms, but patches on the walls and ceiling. I absolutely hate it and from October onwards I go on high alert to try and catch it as soon as it starts to appear or within a few days it spread big time. This year I think it has been particularly bad because we have delayed turning the heating on for as long as possible. We use dehumidifiers to help with drying clothing, but we still get patches appearing. I have tried various products to help in the past, but after a recent TikTok recommendation I tried something new and I'm really impressed. Find out what we have used in the past and my new favourite product.

Through trial and error I have found the best products for removing mould from my home

How To Treat Patches Of Mould In Your Home

Do a Google for the best way to remove and treat mould at home and most of the recommendations suggest that if it is widespread you should get professional help. That’s not easy to afford though. While I don’t doubt they would do an amazing job removing it, if you live in a home with lots of people, have lots of belongings and not enough ventilation mould is likely to keep coming back. The exception to this of course is if there is specific cause like a leaking pipe or roof which can be dealt with and prevent further damp. Realistically what most of us need are easy to use products that kill mould and prevent it coming back for a while.

Products We Have Used To Treat Mould

Bleach

Bleach does an affective job of killing mould and bleaching the stains so it is less visible. While I have seen people claim it only makes it less visible and doesn’t actually kill it, the bulk of evidence I have read suggests it is effective at killing surface mould. I tend to put the bleach into one of those soap dispensing brushes like Dishmatic or the Scrub Daddy Dish wand  so I can easily apply the bleach all over the area without touching it.

It appears that bleach can be problematic on porous surfaces because while it will kill what it comes into contact with it can leave the surface wet and that moisture will then encourage mould spores deeper in the material to spread. I find it does a pretty good job though. 

Supermarket Products

We have used: Astonish Mould& Mildew Spray, Cillit Bang Black Mould Remover Foam Spray and Dettol Antibacterial Mould & Mildew Remover Spray. These are all primarily bleach based with other things mixed into make them more effective (and generally more expensive) than bleach. Cillit Bang for instance claim to have 10 x better cleaning power than pure bleach. 

I have found these all work ok. They aren’t amazing, but they mostly remove the visible mould. 

Mould removal treatments from supermarkets do an ok job 

Vinegar

If you want to use less harsh chemicals to treat mould (for instance you have young children at home) then vinegar is a good option. Unlike bleach it won’t remove stains, however spraying vinegar that is 5% or more acetic acid onto areas of mould and leaving it for 5 to 10 minutes should do a good job of killing it. You can then wipe the vinegar away.

Don't Use Vinegar AND Bleach for Mould Removal

An important note here is that while using vinegar and bleach SEPARATELY are effective at killing mould you should never mix them together. If you use both on the same surface make sure you have throughly cleaned in between. When you mix bleach and vinegar together you create chlorine gas which can be lethal. This is one of the prime examples of why you should not mix cleaning products together. 

Clinell Wipes

I should start this section with two warnings: firstly they do not claim to be suitable for mould removal and secondly the only reason I started using them for mould removal was because I worked with them and they sent me a load so I had them on hand. Having said that the Clinell Universal wipes are effective in killing a range of microorganisms, fungi, mycobacteria and viruses so they make a pretty good cleaning tool. I started using them on surfaces in our house with signs of mould because it is really easy to grab a wipe from the packet, clean the window, shutter, wall etc and throw away the wipe and the mould with it. I prefer to avoid single use products, but when it comes to mould I'm more than happy to get the cleaning wipes out of my house asap. Clinell wipes don't have a bleaching agent in so they don’t remove stains, but the mould seems to stay away as effectively as when I used vinegar or bleach, it’s a lot more handy and it smells better. 

I guess what I’m saying is I have no scientific evidence they work for mould, but they are so convenient you can use them at the first sign of mould. And when it comes to mould cleaning it away the sooner the better.

Tackling Mould Spores

It’s not just mould on surfaces that are the problem, there are likely to be spores in the air, particularly when you are cleaning. It helps to open the window while cleaning patches of mould in the hope that at least some of those spores will leave the house. Airing the room also helps with the smell of whatever you are cleaning with.

A while back I was given Puressential Purifying Air Spray. They recommend 2 sprays a day in all living areas to successfully eliminate bacteria, viruses and mould (scientifically proven effectiveness). I love the idea of the spray, but I find it is very strong so I can’t use it as often as recommended because I find the essential oil smell overpowering. This means I can't confirm if it does work. 

The stains on the left have been there for over a year after killing the mould with bleach based products. The right is after using Safeguard Dryzone Mould Eliminator

My Favourite Product For Mould Removal: Safeguard Dryzone

So if I have tried all the above with some success why did I feel the need to try the more expensive Dryzone products? It was an AD on TikTok. Safeguard Dryzone sell a range of products for treating and preventing mould, but the thing that caught my attention was the Mould Sanitiser. It is designed to be used after treatment and it claims to keep mould away for up to 6 months. If it can help get us through the tricky wetter months then than it is absolutely worth the money.

I ordered a Dryzone Mould Remover and Prevention Kit from Amazon which has 2 bottles of mould eliminator, 1 bottle of sanitiser, fetching green rubber gloves and a microfibre cloth. It was the same price as on the Dryzone website, but the website shipping costs were really high so I went via Amazon.

I decided to try the eliminator out on a patch of wall in my son’s room. A few years ago his wardrobe was up against the external wall and a really really bad mould patch developed. It was a massive wardrobe and it was some time before we were able to move all the furniture around, get access and treat the mould. I used bleach and various bleach based mould products which killed off all the mould but the wall was still stained. With access to the air the mould didn’t start to come back for a couple of years, but I never got round to painting the area and it looked pretty awful.

So I sprayed the Dryzone Mould Eliminator on it and right before my eyes it started to vanish. There were a couple of patches I had to go back and spray again, but that horrible site I have ignored for the last couple of years is now a white wall (if you ignore a couple of patches of old wall paper and where the paint has come off the wall). I keep going in to my son’s room and admiring how good it looks.

You can buy the Mould Eliminator and Sanitiser Spray together in a kit

I followed up with the sanitiser and I’m hoping we get to at least January before I see a return of any black marks in the area. Meanwhile I am planning times when my children aren’t around to treat some of the worst patches in other rooms. The eliminator spray is very strong smelling and probably isn't great to breathe in.

I will update this post on the long term performance of the Mould Sanitiser, but the Mould Eliminator is better at removing black mould marks than anything I have used to date so I’m already wowed by my purchase.