[CR]Leather Mold-what to do

The esteemed Joe Bender-Zanoni asked:

I have asked for help on this before and never received any advice. Apparently it is a very tough problem. It is really painful to have to keep cleaning up old saddles and know they are deteriorating. In my opinion, mild bleach solutions do not work. I have never tried vinegar, but these people don't think much of that either.

This article is helpful and I'm going to try the product and give back a report.

http://www.leathertherapy.com/moldmildew.html#top

Right now New Jersey is a perfect fungus testing ground.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ It turns out that I have a bit of tangential professional involvement with mold issues, and would make the following observations in the hopes that it may help a few members preserve their bikes and saddles a bit longer. All pretty obvious and basic - in hindsight.

1) Mold requires (only) two things in order to thrive: nutrients, like saddles or even wallpaper paste; and enough moisture - somewhere around 60% relative humidity ought to allow some growth; 50% usually suffices to stop it.

2) It seems that the easier way to protect leather would be to control the humidity rather than killing the mold organisms. You could do this by keeping saddles sealed in plastic bags, preferably with some silicon sorbent. Could do this on the bike, tightly sealing the bag against the seat post. But I don't know where to get the dessicant.

3) Or, dry out the room the bikes are in. First, if you store bikes in a basement, DON'T ventilate it during the summer. If you bring hot-humid air in from outside, and then let it cool by contact with the basement floor and walls, you will drive the humidity way up. That's because warm air can hold far more moisture than cool air. Air conditioners dehumidify by cooling the air (to 45F - 55F), at which point a bunch of the moisture condenses on the coil and drains away. Of course, if you're in a radon-prone air, might want to check that before sealing the basement.

4) A pragmatic solution is to keep the storage area closed and install a dehumidifier. I strongly recommend selecting an EnergyStar model. See http://energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=dehumid.pr_dehumidifiers. Where your electricity rates are high, or going to be high, look for a high value of litres water removed/kWh (last column of the spreadsheet). We've mounted ours so it can automatically drain into a laundry sink, so it runs unattended when we're away.

In my experience, I get less rust on tools and parts in drier rooms, too.

So, I hope this will be useful for those with vintage bikes and tropical jungle climates, as in the eastern US. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

harvey sachs
mcLean VA
(day job = energy efficiency "expert." http://www.aceee.org)