Our remodel was driven by the foundation upgrade, which was driven by mold problems.
Actually, I'm going to say, "moisture problems." "Mold" conjures up images of walls covered in black, and we didn't have that. What we had was a nice earthy smell. I say "nice," but my wife didn't use that particular adjective. The smell was only really noticeable when we'd been away for a few days. Then, walking in the downstairs front door, you noticed it.
Since
the downstairs living room was
cut into the hillside, I could
understand the earth-smell.
What seemed unfair was that
clothing stored in the upstairs
closets also picked-up that
earth-smell. Perhaps the stucco
on the north wall was shot;
perhaps mold remained from earlier
roof leaks...
During the
heavy rains of Dec '05 thru
Feb '06, we actually had
water coming into the downstairs
living room, from the hillside. Not
a droplet or two, but a small
steady stream. It was time to
do something.
I
hired a mold inspection firm,
Blount
Inspection Services & Environmental
Testing (415-939-9901),
to take a look. I like
this firm since they don't bid
for repair work that they might
propose - seems like a good
chance I'll get an honest opinion. The
inspector used a moisture tester,
indicated that there weren't
problems in some areas that
I thought there were problems,
and spotted problems where I
hadn't considered them to be. He
suggested that I start my moisture
defense with an elastomeric
coating on the north wall's
stucco. And he advised
that downstairs' moisture would
be very hard to control without
a complete set of french
drains.
Other information from Ben Blount:
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