Environmental Issue & Sick Building Syndrome Blog

              When we recommend  mold remediation, safety and preventing the return of mold are very important.  (Envirospect doe not do remediation......to avoid conflict of interest as a testing, assessment and consulting company) 

            Understanding and correcting the cause of mold growth should be a part of the remediation process.

            In that light, we become concerned about the water source that elevates the humidity, that makes the wood damp, and then the mold to grow.  (Sounds like the nursery rhyme about the “House That Jack Built.”  I will put a section of that ditty at the end of the blog…so you don’t scratch your head too much trying to remember that reference) 

              So….back to mold …… In the picture, you can see that a leak came from the white pipe. Below the white pipe is a brown muck.  That brown muck is coming from the pipe that takes sewage from the commode to the outside sewer. (I am trying to paint the mental image of raw sewage on the basement floor and maintain good taste)

              The contamination from mold is also a sewage contamination in this instance. The hazard is that breathing in dust from the sewage can be a source of serious illness and disease.  If this muck is swept with a broom or sweeper with a bag, the small viruses, bacteria and other contaminants become airborne. This is where a professional need to recognize that the muck is contaminated. It needs disinfected, contained and all of the contaminated particles including the very small organisms need removed without creating any dust. Most importantly, the workers performing the work need to have and properly use PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) 

                According to WHO (World Health Organization) Life-threatening human pathogens carried by sewage include cholera, typhoid and dysentery. Other diseases resulting from sewage contamination schistosomiasis, hepatitis A, intestinal nematode infections, and numerous others.  

                The homeowner in this instance did not recognize that the white pipe leaking was both contaminated sewage and moisture in the basement. This is another time that consulting with a professional instead of a “DIY” mold cleanup wise a very wise move for the health of the family living in this home.   

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT

This is the horse and the hound and the horn

That belonged to the farmer sowing his corn

That kept the rooster that crowed in the morn

That woke the judge all shaven and shorn

That married the man all tattered and torn

That kissed the maiden all forlorn

That milked the cow with the crumpled horn

That tossed the dog that worried the cat

That killed the rat that ate the cheese

That lay in the house that Jack built.

 

   Yes, it did drive me crazy to not remember the ditty and I asked my friend “Google” to help me out.

           Many years ago, I was with my parents at their summer vacation home along with a good friend. I was probably about 13 years old. That’s the age where even when you may be smart enough to “know better”, you’re not wise enough to “do better”.

           They had a wooden row boat. As I said, this was a long time ago before fiberglass boats. Said boat was for a lake that was 90 feet deep in the center. The boat leaked. That would be lake water leaking into the boat….thereby creating a “sinking feeling”.  

           My equally pubescent and inventive friend figured my parents ban on our using the leaking boat didn’t apply because we had a cup to bail out the lake water leaking into the boat.

            We had a lovely time on that lake. Bail a little, row a little, watch the young ladies on water skis a little. We went back to the cottage and proudly told my mother about how we solved the big problem of the leaking boat. By the way, she was of the both “know better and do better” persuasion. She asked to see the cup. It was a very thin, tiny “Dixy” paper cup that we used. Her next question was: “So what would you have done if the paper cup broke?” (“oooohhhh….uuhhhh….ummmm…..oopps” was my answer)

            Guess what …at that point I realized that the REAL solution would have been to fix the leak in the boat.  

          That brings us to the picture of the moldy crawlspace above.  I bet you thought I would not get to that subject….but the row boat story applies.  

          The homeowners had mold in the crawlspace. The paid over $7,000 to install an interior french drain with a sump pump and basin to collect water dug into the soil at the perimeter of the crawlspace. The pump exited the wall at the exterior of the block wall, ended about 6 inches outside the wall as gravity will do………..The water promptly drained back into the block of the crawlspace.  Then that leaking water got pumped out again.  You will also note a larger white pipe at the top of the picture. It is installed with an exhaust fan to suck the smell of the mold outside of the crawlspace (which also sucked heat out of the home).  At the conclusion of the work, the mold was still growing on the wood of the wood joist, beams and flooring for the level above the crawlspace.  The house still smelled of moldy wood. The water is obviously still leaking into the crawlspace not only causing mold, but rotting the wood.

LOOK AT THE WET BLOCK! Even if you are not a building expert, you can plainly see that water is still leaking into the area. The outside downspout and discharge pipe from the sump pump were leaking back into the crawlspace. The concrete patio was draining in toward the wall and under the door sill of the patio door above that wall area.

         Just like sealing the hole in the row boat was the way to not land up treading water in the middle of lake, correcting the three, easy to observe, easy to correct casues of the leaks would have corrected the CAUSE of the mold. $7,000 LATER AND THEY STILL HAD MOLD

           The problem was that they had called a “Dewatering company” that sold interior french drains and exhaust fans, not mold experts who considered the cause and actual solutions to the cause and the mold.    

            You know that if you have a mold problem, your home is really a science experiment that resulted in the growth of mold. If the conditions are not changed in an experiment, you will get the same results.

        The conclusion of this story: Looking at mold is not enough. Hire experts trained to consider the source of mold and how to correct the mold and the source. ..and fix the boat instead of taking a paper cup.