getting rid of mold

  • Thread starter Thread starter mrhtbd
  • Start date Start date
M

mrhtbd

Guest
I looked at the new place yesterday and it has a lot of mold. Some black mold where the roof has been leaking, but mostly green mold from water in the basement.
I want to dig a trench to get the water away from the house as the gutters have been directing it towards the foundation.
Moving in with all that mold.Not good, besides, the wife will use it against me in court as a reason the kids shouldn't stay there.
Gotta get rid of it all.
I know the roof needs fixed. I know we have to dig a trench around the home to build a french drain to keep moisture away from the house.
There are many leaks in the basement walls.
I really should expose the outer foundation and waterseal it so I'm looking into that.
How about how to clean it off surfaces now to get the house livable?
Any other tips?
 
Hy mrhtbd, if the house has mold, neither you nor your kids should be there. I would not let my kids go spend much time in a building with mold in it. It leads to many many complicated health issues. WTF dude? Why would you buy a house with mold issues? Strong WTF.... Can you get out of the contract? I bet you may be able to.

The first step is to stop the water, then remediate mold from there from there. If you have basement water, there is no half ass approach that will get you to where you want to be: dry. Is water coming in around the footer? If so the drainage pipe around the footer on the outside is probably plugged. Don't think you are going to just seal the walls and correct this problem; water will find a new crack and if it is building up around the footer, which it likely is, it will always leak regardless of how much you seal it. To fix this you need to REDO THE WHOLE FOOTER DRAIN and dig up and remove these pipes/tiles (whatever they are) all the way around the house. Try to dig the trench 24" away from the block wall uniformly and dig it all the way to the footer and scrape the soil off the footer. Remove the existing pipe or tile and throw them over the hill. A small back hoe is your friend here if you have no obstructions, or you may be able to do most of the work with a hoe then shovel around AC lines, gas lines, water lines, etc and whatever.

Once you have a nice clean trench, install corrogated pipe all the way around the house, cutting the pipe and installing 90 deg lbows at the corners. On one corner, run both ends out into the yard, well away from the house to drain away. I dont know what it is called (I called it a pipe condom), it is a nylon mesh cover for such pipe that is designed to keep dirt and mud out of your footer drain.

This will likely correct 90% of most problems by giving the water the same opportunity to drain that any new home constructed would have. To get the other 10%, lets seal the outside of the basement walls. In your case, the most effective and least expensive way to seal the outside of the basement walls is to simply paint them up to ground level with black roof tar, from the base of the wall where it meets the footer all the way up to where the ground will be when you put the dirt back.

Once your pipe is installed and laying against the block wall on top of the footer and your walls are painted with roofing tar and it is dry, cover the pipe with 24" of gravel in the trench. Some people used to put 48" of gravel in the trench but they were likely copying from the tile drain days, but you have a plastic pipe with condom, so not necessary but would hurt. Then backfill your dirt and haul the excess off. Keep some soil to put on after settling to have a level yard.

As you can see this is not a small job.

The roof will need to be replaced before any mold remediation takes place up there. As for the remediation, I would discover exactly what type of mold you have and then go from there. I am sure you can search for the right technique. I had a small section in a finished basement that I remediated through a combination of demolition/replacement and simple chlorine-based bathroom spray. This was a small job. If you got it everywhere, there are commercial products designed for this purpose.

But I will repeat, dont have little kids in a house with mold. They will be sick all the time and for a long time.
 
Last edited:
Darkness said:
Hy mrhtbd, if the house has mold, neither you nor your kids should be there. I would not let my kids go spend much time in a building with mold in it. It leads to many many complicated health issues. WTF dude? Why would you buy a house with mold issues? Strong WTF.... Can you get out of the contract? I bet you may be able to.

The first step is to stop the water, then remediate mold from there from there. If you have basement water, there is no half ass approach that will get you to where you want to be: dry. Is water coming in around the footer? If so the drainage pipe around the footer on the outside is probably plugged. Don't think you are going to just seal the walls and correct this problem; water will find a new crack and if it is building up around the footer, which it likely is, it will always leak regardless of how much you seal it. To fix this you need to REDO THE WHOLE FOOTER DRAIN and dig up and remove these pipes/tiles (whatever they are) all the way around the house. Try to dig the trench 24" away from the block wall uniformly and dig it all the way to the footer and scrape the soil off the footer. Remove the existing pipe or tile and throw them over the hill. A small back hoe is your friend here if you have no obstructions, or you may be able to do most of the work with a hoe then shovel around AC lines, gas lines, water lines, etc and whatever.

Once you have a nice clean trench, install corrogated pipe all the way around the house, cutting the pipe and installing 90 deg lbows at the corners. On one corner, run both ends out into the yard, well away from the house to drain away. I dont know what it is called (I called it a pipe condom), it is a nylon mesh cover for such pipe that is designed to keep dirt and mud out of your footer drain.

This will likely correct 90% of most problems by giving the water the same opportunity to drain that any new home constructed would have. To get the other 10%, lets seal the outside of the basement walls. In your case, the most effective and least expensive way to seal the outside of the basement walls is to simply paint them up to ground level with black roof tar, from the base of the wall where it meets the footer all the way up to where the ground will be when you put the dirt back.

Once your pipe is installed and laying against the block wall on top of the footer and your walls are painted with roofing tar and it is dry, cover the pipe with 24" of gravel in the trench. Some people used to put 48" of gravel in the trench but they were likely copying from the tile drain days, but you have a plastic pipe with condom, so not necessary but would hurt. Then backfill your dirt and haul the excess off. Keep some soil to put on after settling to have a level yard.

As you can see this is not a small job.

The roof will need to be replaced before any mold remediation takes place up there. As for the remediation, I would discover exactly what type of mold you have and then go from there. I am sure you can search for the right technique. I had a small section in a finished basement that I remediated through a combination of demolition/replacement and simple chlorine-based bathroom spray. This was a small job. If you got it everywhere, there are commercial products designed for this purpose.

But I will repeat, dont have little kids in a house with mold. They will be sick all the time and for a long time.
Click to expand...

Great advice bro, the black mold is especially toxic.
 
A friend of mine bought and moved into a house wit mold. Over a few months he got really sick. His docs couldn't figure it out. He eventually had to move put of the house and take a loss.
 
theres special companies you can call with sprays to get rid of the mold.... its especially easy if its just in a concreate basement..... as for the roof your going to have to replace the insulation cuz u wont get mold out of that adn u you can ask the company to treat the mold on the wood if they can
 
Glycomann said:
A friend of mine bought and moved into a house wit mold. Over a few months he got really sick. His docs couldn't figure it out. He eventually had to move put of the house and take a loss.
Click to expand...

Yea my son was having all kinds of headaches and shit and other symptoms that seemed to be kinda like allergies. I found mold in his lower level bedroom in a confined corner. I ripped all the drywall and framing and insulation out, and treated the balance at random with cleaners, and built everything back, and he got well immedaitely. In the case where the shit is rampant through a house, I would just burn the mutherfucker down TBH. Those mold spores are nearly immortal.

I would not give anyone $3 for a home with mold in it.
 
Darkness said:
Yea my son was having all kinds of headaches and shit and other symptoms that seemed to be kinda like allergies. I found mold in his lower level bedroom in a confined corner. I ripped all the drywall and framing and insulation out, and treated the balance at random with cleaners, and built everything back, and he got well immedaitely. In the case where the shit is rampant through a house, I would just burn the mutherfucker down TBH. Those mold spores are nearly immortal.

I would not give anyone $3 for a home with mold in it.
Click to expand...

My buddy Hakan went from a 160 pounder fighting in the ladder tournament, a 1/2 point tournament for National ranking, to 120 lbs looking like a fail guy on chemo in less than a year.
 
I'm allergic to mold(and dust) and the rainy warm springs kick my ass. I do allergy shots and nose sprays for it now. Our house sits up on a hill so we weren't worried about water. Our basement had a sump pit but a pump was never installed. The last couple of years my sinuses went crazy and we realized there was water sitting under the house for some damn reason. The day we installed a sump pump that fucker ran for over an hour and pumped out hundreds of gallons.

Luckily the only place we got a little water was the unfinished side of our basement. I went down and sprayed bleach water and mopped beach everywhere. Sinuses still plug up a little but much better.

I have a built in mold detector. Luckily it doesn't lay my ass out.
 
Damn, ok, but I saw that.
Remediation is the key.
I had several contractors out there saying this and that.
(It's a Fannie Mae Property so I have to get the needed repairs done by a contractor).
Darkness is right. Except I don't understand where the pipe around the foundation sill directs the water? and how to create a well, of sorts on the property for the excess water to be drawn into the soil.
Anyway there is a little black mold, down two corners where the leaks are under the roof. Unfortunately that's the master bedroom.
I'm planning on replacing the drywall, no doubt.
The other mold is green and slimy.
There has been water spping into the basement through spots and cracks in the foundation walls. I did concrete in the Army so I'm sure I can work with the cracks, but the water is coming right through. You can see where because the rust (from the iron-rich soil) made orange stains down the wall.
The green mold is all over the basement.
The house wasn't inhabited since 2007.
I have the option of tearing it down someday, but it's not feasible now.
I'd like to get the trench dug, the roof fixed, and the city-water hooked up. I want to get the mold while it's wet, too, more control of the spores.
Sucks, but I have a respirator.
Other than that, it resembles a cool, rustic mountain cabin, with pine panelling, cabinets, and closet doors, and oak flooring, vintage 1952.
 
Hey bro the footer drain pipe just lays on the footer, and at each corner will be connected through with a 90 degree elbow, except for one corner of the house, which will have both ends of the pipe coming and, if you want, simply draining into the yard. What I did with mine is simply dug a trench to run the pipe that was deep enough so the water could flow downhill and away from the house, and terminated into a small pit I dug, about 3 feet deep, that I filled with gravel. That is all you need. Now if you wanted to get fancy and direct it into an available storm sewer or some shit feel free, but my solution is all you need.

The footer HAS to have water standing on it from a plugged footer drain. The reason I know this is because if water is coming through cracks in the walls, the soil is saturated with water as high as the water is coming in, since water will always take the path of least resistance. This is a common problem with older houses, as these pipes plug up over time, and especially because they used to use tile with alittle space between them and over time the soil just clogs the gravel.
 
That's an informative response and is exactly what's needed for this thing to be inhabitable. Good thing we'll be starting in December! Oh well, least the equipment is being used.
I found out the roof was replaced in 2006. In 2007-2008, snow built up on the roof, and stayed for weeks, creating ice dams which lifted up the shingles in the two shallow valleys. That's where those leaks are coming from. Gotta replace some plywood there, and on the way down, probably some drywall too.
Somehow, I have to get over there and do some abatement myself. Just some clean-up with a respirator and maybe white painter's suit (hazmat).
Add it to the list.
 
liftsiron said:
Clorox works best imo. They make clorox pads especially for mold removal.
Click to expand...

I have mixed up a little bleach and water in a spray bottle to get rid of a little water stain on a ceiling and works pretty good on mold.

I use vinegar for salads but is acidic enough to probably kill mold. :)
 
Took your advice and realized something had to be done immediately, so, I took some hot water with me to the house, with a mop etc.
The mold was so bad I needed protection first, so I taped a plastic bag over each boot, then put on a hazmat suit, a respirator, long rubber gloves, goggles and a hat.
The guys across the street were busting on me. I heard the one guy say, ..."One hundrend and twenty gigawatts," from Back To The Future, and they all laughed. Met them later, good group of people.

Anyway, first I duck-taped plastic over the hole in the kitchen floor.
The bathroom is behind the kitchen and to put in new pipes they cut a hole in the floor. The air circulated out of the basement through that hole. I could tell because a stream of mold grew out from that spot. As I walked down the hall towards the kitchen I saw mold growing out of the kitchen, into the livingroom, on the floor. Nasty!

Yeah, so I stopped that airflow, then I duck-taped the hole in the basement window for the dryer vent to prevent outside air from circulating.

Next I filled up two buckets with hot water. One with Murphy's oil soap. I mopped out of that bucket, rinsed in the other. Went through the whole house like that, got all the woodwork on the first floor, basement stairs and railings.

Lastly I had to tackle the basement. I took 12, Clorox, bathroom bleach-and-cleaner spray bottles, and sprayed the entire underside of the first floor, rafters, floorboards and all. It was a bear. Thankfully I had a good respirator, couldn't smell a thing.

Went in yesterday to check it out, and spray down a beam I saw boring marks through. Got that done.

In all, the basement looks good. No apparent growth to any degree i can see it. I cleaned it last, about five days ago. Actually took off my respirator, but don't want to do that yet.

Decided with the contractor that we will replace all the drywall in two bedrooms, sheathing on the roof, and definately redirect water away from the house by upgrading the gutters.

I'll keep you posted. Definately a no-go for the kids or me at this point. Holding course, like a Lemming, toward the cliff. Closing date, 12/7/12.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New Posts

Trending

Back
Top