Water problems: Dealing with and remediating mold problems

This has a lot to do with the other 2 threads I started, dealing with outside and inside water. Since mold issues have a variety of sources, I thought I would talk about some of them here.

Remember that you as the homeowner know your house and its history better than anyone else. If you get to the point where you hire a contractor to take care of your mold problem, you may hear some scary things about mold and the spores.

You should heed their advice and protect your health. The key thing I want to stress here is that when the water problems are addressed, both inside and outside, you mold or termite problems will be gone as well. If you don't address that water or moisture, the problems will be with you until you do. :learn:

Someone sent me an e-mail telling me of their mold problems. This was part of my response to them and thought it might benefit some others to read it:


Mold develops because in some instances water doesn't have a chance to drain properly away from a house.

Areas to look at, from the easiest to the hardest:

1. Aluminum gutters and drains - making sure none leak and pitch the water away from the house.

2. Making sure the dirt pitches at an angle away from the house. If not it has to be built up so it rolls away when it rains hard.
a) A physical way to address this if the grade is built up and water is still leaching into your house through the window wells is pretty involved.
b) It involves digging the dirt away from the foundation, patching all foundation cracks, sealing the foundation with black waterproof sealer, filling in the area with bluestone, and then backfilling and regrading so the water flows away from the house.
c) Then you can re-grade higher than your window wells, after installing a semi-circular galvanized window well guard in the ground and filling that area with bluestone to keep the space around the window unobstructed.
d) This is back-breaking labor, and many people opt for the in-cellar sump pump as the easiest option.
For my house, I did the back-breaking labor because I wanted to take care of all the moisture and discourage termites from coming in.

3. Hardest would be installing a sump pump in the lowest part of the basement that gets water.
This is involved...to do it the best way you need to build a drain field at least 3x bigger than the area of the sump pit. You will be filling with 3/4" bluestone.

a. Put in drainage pipe if you have to around the perimeter, or dig french drains where it's really bad to channel the excess water into the sump area.
b. Think carefully about how water accumulates in the basement when the worst storms hit. Sometimes a sump in a corner is not enough, and that's a good reason to consider installing french drains.
c. Prepare for the worst storm you've ever experienced. If you take the preparation to that level, you will most llkely eliminate the water issues.
d. Solving mold issues is similar to solving termite problems. Once you effectively and intelligently eliminate all possible sources of rain and storm water, your problem diminishes.


Anyone else who has tips or what's worked for them, feel free to post up.