White fungus is invading my speaker drivers...please help! (1 Viewer)

[Luis Gabriel Gerena]

Greetings!
I need big help cause white spots (fungus?) are covering my speaker cones and I don't know what to do about it. It happened a long time ago to my kenwood speakers (in my previous house) but it was on the back of the enclosure not on the cones. That time I used garlic and tea tree oil but now being directly on the cones I don't what to do...help.

 

[Randy G]

Twas the humongous fungus among us that hung us.

 

[Chu Gai]

any chance maybe a local university can analyze it?

 

[Darius]

Maybe an antifungal cream might help. I'm itchy already.

 

[Marty Neudel]

Luis,
unfortunately, fixing the speakers won't cure the problem; the fungus will return over and over again (as you have discovered). You have to destroy the spores that have been deposited in, and around, your home. They'll be in the carpeting, in closets, everywhere you can think of and many places you wouldn't suspect. Think of the most horrific invasions shown on the SciFi channel, and that's fungal infestation. There are fumigators who deal with this and you may want to contact one.
Marty

 

[Kevin. W]

I can give you a cure for your speaker cones but if the environment your speakers are in is damp then I would invest in a dehumidifier to remove the dampness. You would be best to e-mail your speaker manufacturer to get a remedy for the cones.
Kevin

 

[Kwang Suh]

Hmm, tell your speakers to stop going to the red light district

 

[Chuck Kent]

Luis: I agree that the best information on your speaker drivers will come from the manufacturer. It's hard to imagine that you will be able to avoid replacing them. (But I hope I'm wrong.)
But, no matter what you do, the humidity in Puerto Rico is something that you need to try to address if you hope to avoid problems down the road.
If your home is not air conditioned, you will continue to have problems. (A dehumidifier can substitute for an air conditioner but it puts out warm air and can raise the temperature of the room they are in.) Unfortunately, either solution can only work in a closed room environment. If you like to open the windows from time to time, relative humidity will always be higher than the 50% (plus or minus 10% or so) target you should hope to be at.
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[MarkWC]

Chuck is right on.
It's called mildew. I have the same problem in Bermuda. A dehumidifier is one solution, but being in a naturally warm climate, you would probably want to avoid more hot air being pumped through your room. You could mount it and channel out the water and air.
An air conditioner is the better solution. Mitsubitshi has a unit called Mr. Slim which is installed in your ceiling and channeled to an outdoor unit. Sanyo has wall unit, built in, to avoid window loss. Naturally, both have remotes. These two are great because they have a dry cycle which costs much less than cool air but moderates the level to a more comfortable degree.
I would call a local install air conditioning vendor and inquire about your options. Once installed, you will use it all the time. I am looking forward to being able to afford one myself.
Good Luck
BTW - what do you use to clean mildew with???

 

[Luis Gabriel Gerena]

Wow it seems to be a lot more complex than I thought! The room I have now is almost completely sealed except for two back windows which are covered by a fabric called "blackout" and there is only enough open space to redirect the hot air coming out from my front projector outside the room. Heat is a big problem for projectors so that rules out the dehumidifier option. Air conditioning could be an option if I can convince the owner (rented house). I don't feel humidity is that high where I live now compared to where I used to live were I had the problem for the first time. I do recall that after I upgraded my Kenwood HTB503 speakers with the Acoustic Research 318PS I still had to use one of Kenwood's infected speakers as a center so maybe thats how the infection moved from the kenwood to the ARs. Still, all I am doing now is removing it everyt time it builds up while I can figure out what to do. Your suggestions are very good (some funny jokes too) so I am going to try most of them. Should I leave the room's door open when not in use to allow air flow?
What do you mean by mildew? Is that like water condensation? Sorry but while my English is good enough (at least I think so

) sometimes I forget words and don't have a dictionary at hand.
Regards

 

[Chuck Kent]

Luis: Mildew is a fungus type growth that occurs in higher moisture conditions.
Moving air is better than non-moving for this problem. Moving air helps to promote evaporation (this is why a drive in the car with the windows down feels so good on a hot day.) But if the humidity is high enough, a fan or two just won't do enough.
Go to a hardware store and buy a cheap hygrometer (this measures relative atmospheric humidity.) Radio Shack also sells a digital model for not too much money. If the relative humdity is above 50% for most of the time, then you will continue to have problems.
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[Luis Gabriel Gerena]

Thanks for the explanation and for the recommendation too...I thinking I am going to Radio Shack tomorrow
Hopefully I'll be able to fix this soon.
Regards