Sending Out Bids, By The Buschel

dakzaag

Phone seems to be ringing right now. Looked at a 40 yr old house, cracks in a 4 course block crawl. Most of the cracks minor, but one wall, the top block are raised up off the mud bed about 1/8" or so. can't quite identify the problem. Best guess is a 3' diameter tree about 5 ' away from the foundation wall. My guess is the tree is pushing on the crawl wall and curling the block up on the inside. No evidence to suggest the wall (its a gable end) is going away from the house so the tree has become the evil villian at this point.

The tree is also causing extensive moss growth on cedar shake roof. I think the tree must go.

While inspecting the crawl, noticed lots of moisture on the walls an water on top of the plastic "floor" Ventilation is way under sized. several area's of mold are developing and I recommended that after we fixed the cracks, the HO get more vents in the crawl.

Just curious what the mold remediation process is. None of the wood seems to be rotting just a surface mold that has worked its way up into the first floor in a couple of spots. The house has sat empty for about two years now and we have had abnormal rain the last 6 weeks.

The house is for sale, bid offered pending house inspection, HI saw the foundation issues and mold. Interested party contacted me about looking at the property. Turns out the house is owned by my previous employer who I am on good terms with. Talk about your conflict of interest. Really just curious what the best mold treatment would be after addressing the ventilation.

I personally think the mold scare is way over done, but its not my house. The prospective buyer is getting a mold expert in tomorrow, I told him to get the ventilation needs fixed first and see how much mold disappears then worry about cleaning and painting or what ever on the floor joists. I want this deal to go through as I stand to see a bunch of work that the prospective buyer wants done before he moves in. Some slick talking mold guy comes in a fleeces the buyer and seller for $25,000 in wasted mold treatments and the deal falls apart or worse they split the cost and no money left for brick wainscote (about 250 LF) plus a fireplace reface.

I could easily land a solid month on this job. but not if they blow it all trying to scrape a little penicillin off the floor joists.

Sorry this got so long.

__________________
D K & Sons
The maintenance schedule for brick
1. Stand back and say "man that looks nice!"
2. Repeat as often as needed.

sparehair

Empty for two years. that's the problem that caused the mold. Without the constant heat from occupation you'd have to have total ventilation to keep that space dry.

I'm not a mold remediator. As a painter I would hose it down with a bleach solution and count on the normal use of the building to keep the space dry in the future. The trick will be setting up some fans in may/june to pump that water out.

Yes I understand we're talking crawlspace when I advocate killing the mold with bleach. Sometimes you just have to get dirty to get the job done.

sparehair

yep, the mold guys got the racket. The ho's do it to themselves; make your story scarier than the mold guys. But not too scary cuz they'll back out of the deal.