Question About Mold/water In Basement?
I was wondering if there are any contractors/etc out there who would be willing to take a look at a couple pictures for me. I am looking at a house in a great area, very nice house great price ( 3 bed 3 bath 3 car garage . 55 acres for $56k) Anyway, there is mold in one part of the basement, the front right corner if that makes any difference, and water around the edges on some parts in the same area. I wondered if anyone could tell me whether or not it looks like a huge undertaking, or if it could be fixed with a simple removal of the mold and sealing the inner walls. Here are the links, thanks for your input! I know nobody can tell me exactly without seeing it etc, but just some thoughts would be great! http://img40. imageshack. us/img40/1107/fl…http://img40. imageshack. us/img40/1508/fl…http://img29. imageshack. us/img29/1816/wa…http://img40. imageshack. us/img40/2610/wa…
Tags: 3 Car Garage, About, Basement, Imageshack, Inner Walls, Mold, Mold/water, Question, Undertaking
Worked on a lot of these problems. Landscaping has a great deal to do with it. Check to make sure that the ground slopes away from all the walls outside, make sure all eave spouts and troughs are not overflowing and the spouts are directed away from the house. Construction block basements tend to fill the blocks with water for days after a rain. It sits in the holes and seeps out at the floor. If the soil is graded properly away from the house and the spouts and eaves are all okay, this will lessen the problem. You also need to run a dehumidifier in most basements regardless of where you are. Once you get it dry, use bleach to kill the mold and paint over the block walls with a good sealer. Any ceiling tiles will need replacement. I’ve seen worse than yours and these techniques work. The ceiling tiles simply act like a sponge in a wet basement
There is leak in the foundation and when you open up moldy walls you really don’t know how big the job could be. We had a flood and ripped out the floor in the basement and the boards were rotten in the subfloor and there was mold everywhere/ Had to take it to cement and put in weeping tile, a lot of work. But, hey if you are getting hte house for $56k and it costs you 10K for the repairs, you’re still doing great!
Pixie, you need to worry about the health effects if you dont properly address it right the first time. everything with mold on it needs to be totally replaced not sealed.
Strange that it’s only just a little water, hasn’t damaged walls much. I don’t think sealing the inside would do anything as the concrete will still be wet and there’s really no way sealing can keep water out. Repair work would have to be done from the outside to improve drainage, although . . . I’ve seen where a few inches of floor is removed around edges and a gravel ‘trench’ created before floor repaired. But that depends on what kind of material is beneath the floor, whether it would drain the water away before it gets inside.
Usually, if water is getting in the basement it’s not just a little around the edges. Getting rid of existing mold is easy, just remove wallpaper and use 2% bleach solution on concrete. But you don’t want a damp basement. I suspect before anyone could say for sure how to fix it they’d have to see it in person, determine where water is coming from, etc.
All in all, not a good sign and I wouldn’t want to take on that kind of problem.
That type of leakage indicates foundation drainage issues.
Your best (and less expensive and messy) alternative here would be installing an internal perimeter drainage system, along the basement walls and a sump pump.
Not to mention the longest lasting one.
External drains clog and fail, and internal ones can be flushed and serviced as needed.
As for the mold, even with the leak fixed, you might need to runa a dehumidifier to keep the RH at or below 50%. Higher leves of humidity in the air and the mold will come back to haunt you.