Mold Remediation in Cerrillos, New Mexico

Los Cerrillos sits about twenty miles south of Santa Fe on the Turquoise Trail, NM 14, along Galisteo Creek. It boomed in the 1870s and 1880s when hard rock miners hit a lode and the district produced turquoise, lead, silver, gold and coal. At its peak the village had saloons and hotels; today it has a few hundred residents, dirt streets, an old opera house, St. Joseph's Church, a mining museum and Cerrillos Hills State Park just outside.

The building stock is what makes mold work here specific. These are historic adobe and territorial structures, many standing since the 1880s, and many used seasonally as galleries, studios, short-term rentals or part-time residences.

Why Cerrillos buildings get mold

Very old adobe under later repairs

A building that has stood this long has been patched by a lot of hands. Portland cement stucco and cement patching over original adobe is common, and it traps water in walls that were built to dry outward through mud plaster. The symptoms are the same as everywhere else in the county but more advanced: coving at the wall base, salt bloom through the plaster, and interior growth on exterior walls.

Buildings that sit closed

A gallery closed from November to March, or a studio used a few weekends a month, has nobody in it to notice a leak, no heat drying it out, and no air moving. Closed and cold means condensation on every cold surface and no drying. A leak that starts in a January storm is often found at spring opening.

Arroyo and creek runoff

Galisteo Creek and the arroyos coming out of the Cerrillos Hills run hard and fast in a monsoon storm. This is water moving across ground that cannot absorb it, into a village built long before modern drainage planning. Water ends up against foundations and wall bases.

Dirt streets and grade

Unpaved streets and long-settled grades mean that over a century the ground has often risen relative to building bases. An adobe wall with soil piled against it wicks water continuously.

Old roofs, old canales

Flat roofs, parapets and canales that have been repaired many times over. Layers of coating on top of layers of coating hide what is happening in the deck below.

What to check on a Cerrillos property

• Grade against every exterior wall. If soil is above the original wall base, that is a problem worth solving.
• Wall bases inside and out for softness, coving and salt bloom.
• Parapets, canales and roof discharge.
• Any building that sits closed, at least monthly, and always after a storm.
• Whether the last stucco repair used a breathable system or a hard cement one.

Working on 1880s buildings

Removal here is conservative by necessity. The goal is to take out failed plaster and contaminated material and nothing more, dry the wall mass slowly and verify it with a meter rather than by feel, and put back a vapor-permeable finish. Thick old adobe takes weeks, not days, to dry. Anyone quoting a three-day turnaround on a saturated historic wall is guessing.

Also worth knowing: buildings this old that have been remodeled in the twentieth century may contain asbestos in joint compound, floor tile and mastic, and lead in paint. That gets tested before demolition, not after.

Getting somebody out there

Cerrillos is about twenty-five minutes down NM 14 from town, no travel charge, free written estimate. Neighboring coverage includes Madrid, Galisteo and Lamy. See containment and removal for how adobe work differs.

Frequently asked questions