"Wet" Cement Slab And Moldy Vinyl Flooring?

I live in a 1946-built house in the UK. These were constructed at the end of WW2, and had no thought of sealing the concrete floor.

The simplest way to stop damp rising is to put down a damp proof membrane (1mm thick polythene sheet) onto the cleaned concrete, and slightly up the wall (1" or so) to hide behind the skirting.

Up here, we insulate before fitting the flooring.

There are also injection damp proofing materials, but with the baby around that might mean moving out for a while to get the chemical work done.

It sounds as if the water table needs to be lowered by placing a 3 foot trench around the house filled with plastic drainage pipe (the modern replacement of weeping tiles). This drainage pipe is routed to a sewer or a pumped collection pit (sump).

If you are in a boggy place with the water table near surface(where houses should not be built without a barrier), I am not sure what can be done.

As for the builder - if he violated building codes you might have some potential case against him, but otherwise, after 3 years, I suspect not.

I know I our subdivion was built where there used to be woods, not sure if it was swampy woods that are common this close to the marsh. I do know that last year our neighbor had to put in a french drain because they found a natural spring under his back yard and they tied it into the storm drain. We had looked into that also because our lot was not graded properly so we have a "marshy" area on one side of our yard where the water doesn't puddle but the mud is very mushy and grass dies there. The problem is that they graded the front yard higher than the back so water doesn't run to the front to run into the street to hit the storm drain. We didn't notice this until the summer rains started and by then we had put up a fence and the builder said he couldn't do anything about it to fix it. The pumpled collection pit (sump) is that a hole that would be in our yard? I don't think we could connect it to the sewer without going under our driveway or parking pad.

Yes, it looks as if you need the so-called French Drain or Weeping Tile

type of system that your neighbour installed.

That builder is dealing with you as a sucker. A fance can easily begapped for either system. What he is doing is giving you a few words, which is a lot cheaper than doing the work.

Cannot help with the fireants. Sounds like u need to take the vinyl up so the floor will dry. I would talk to restoration contractors but you need to do your own homework. There is one product that I know that may work..Zypex. I would call the Company and talk to their technical rep.. you can also visit a concrete Accessory supply company and see what products they have. Always call the technical support for the product and u can get good info. I would start with Zypex first. Great product and you can put on. May have to put a latex skim Coat on top of it for smoothness. ND

Would that stop all the moisture? Would the dampness still be under the walls? That is what one contractor told us... we could seal the floor but the moisture would still be under the walls and mold would go there. It would just be putting a band-aid on the problem. Also, would having radiant heating installed under tile help stop this problem?

Take a look at this, it may be of some help

http://www.simplifydiy.com/walls-and-ceilings/damp-proofing

hope you get the problem solved.

In regard to #2, the drain pipe idea should be something to consider for both problems: summer rains drainage and the distancing of the water table from the house. There are some excellent polypropylene pipe products with steel or plastic membrane coatings that prevent the mud and sand from entering the pipe and clogging it. A home is worth protecting. A perimeter drain pipe would offer considerable protection from the main cause. You might want to research the situation a bit for the optimal depth of placement, but this solution works in many environments with similar problems. Once the drain pipe has been installed then the slab needs to be dried and sealed as well since any residual moisture and any seepage past the drain pipe barrier needs to be kept out. However common sense would dictate that the leak in the boat be plugged first and then the water bailed out.

You could try installing a sump pump down about 3ft below the floor. I have done a few of these and they will drop the local water table under the floor. The other thing you could think about is a vent system similar to what they do for Radon. Basically a pipe that goes through the floor and draws the air/moisture through a fan installed in the attic or other convenient place.

I hate to be the messenger of bad bad news, but since you have mold growing atop your slab-on-grade you do not have too many viable options available to you.

First, I'd be very concerned for your young child's health and her prolonged exposure to mold, which can in some cases be deadly. You should move out of the house to protect her and yourselves until the mold problem has been remedied.

Secondly, it appears that your entire floor covering throughout the house must be stripped off of the floor slab and a strong industrial grade mildicide applied to the cleaned-up slab at least several times. All kitchen base cabinets, bathroom vanities, shower stalls, tubs and built-in wall shelves will need to be removed as well and chemically treated.

Thirdly, I highly recommend the application of Xypex to the exposed top surface of the slab as previously suggested by another poster. Unfortunately, this product will not do you any good whatsoever under the exterior and interior walls where they bear upon the slab, as those surfaces must be exposed for the Xypex to become effective. Those areas will remain a mold hazard unless the entire house is jacked-off of the slab.

Lastly, all of the above work and living elsewhere is going to be costly. Since the house builder has been unresponsive I strongly suggest that you obtain the services of a very good and costly attorney who specializes in these sort of cases. Also, hire both an Architect and a Licensed Professional Engineer (Structural & HazMat....possibly a Forensic Engineer w/ Expert Testimony Experience) to investigate your case further and to document the mold causes and damages to bolster your ligation against the house builder. You may also want to contact your state's Attorney General.

As a last resort due to unchecked mold growth that may make the home unhabitable you may have to raze the entire home.....just may sure that your local building inspector/code enforcement officer, the Architect, the PE and your attorney all sign off on that option before you bulldoze the house....ie, get the money due to you (to recover your costs, including medical expenses, and specified damages) from the house builder first!

Good luck with your house and getting back to square one!

==Signed,

CaptMoosie, NYS LPE / PhD

Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineer

You need to go to the state board of contractors that has authority over the licensing of the builder and place a complaint. THis will get a bit more traction than talking to the builder alone. It works, I have done it.

I would also contact a few lawyers and find one that is agressive(hired gun), I have a Junk Yard Dog lawyer that works on comission, and he got me an $1800 dollar settlement for a drunk that hit my 350# mailbox ( My hand built rebar concrete and solid 4" steel post vandal resistant mailbox).

Finally I would contact and link up with the other members of your community to see if they have the same home problems to again get a solid legal foothold to buy back the house or to PAY ANOTHER contractor to fix your house.

You accept what you accept. Woody

by the way, dont estimate. Dig under the slab to be sure that there is no barrier, it is not much of a job to burrow under the slab to SEE what is up. Dont guess, its too important to muck about, measure then act. Woody

We have covered this problem before on these pages. The general concensus is that any fix will be expensive. Personally I do not think that lifting a house up, and jackhammering the slab to little pieces, then re-pouring the slab would be less expensive than bull dozing the whole thing. We lift houses around here all the time and put basements under them. So it is a straightforward solution, and there will be people in your area who can do that with no problem. IF you need to. Note that you would still need to do this if you want to lay on an impermeable membrane over the slab....you will need to get it under the walls. Unless you are prepared to do that, your bandaid will simply move the problem into the walls. In fact, because of the nature of that stupid vinyl floor they laid down, the mold might be thinking of starting up into the walls now! Make plans pronto to get rid of that vinyl.

It might not be that bad actually! Slabs by their nature, even a well drained slab will sweat under a vinyl floor. The answer is not not use vinyl. Ceramic tile for instance, would work just fine. If there is not a LOT of moisture, then that might be all you need! That would be cheaper than jacking up the house and destroying the slab! Of course, best of all would be plain concrete floor, but unless you are very clever, that will be rejected on aesthetic grounds.

My workshop was built with no vapor barrier under the slab. It is fine. Thats because there is plenty of drainage around it. If you dig a trench around the whole outside, and lay in weeping tile in the bottom, you will have drainage. Sure it should have been done first, but its not too late to do it now!

So, before bulldozing the house, I would trench the outside, and drain it. Then yank up that vinyl floor and slather on a really good fungicide. Then put down ceramic tiles. If THAT doesn't work, then at least you have a well trained lot for the next house you put on that site!

Um....that would be a "well DRAINED" lot, not a "well TRAINED lot. Curse that spell check!

I'll look further, but I wonder about my own suggestion of ceramic tile instead of vinyl flooring....perhaps a tile which can ventilate the slab, like a porous terra cotta tile? Help keep the slab dry! Any comments from the civil engineers on using something porous? Is it a good idea or just an idea? I think it might get uncleanably dirty....

Bill

In our area slab on grade is common along with the mold problems. Buyer be ware.

A ventilated crawl space construction eliminates that problem.

We have a 3000 ft^2 house over a crawl space, vapour barrier with a skim coat of cement for fire protection.

Looking into options to improve storage and give myself a work shop I looked into raising the building. I was surprised the actual lifting could be done for about $10k. The expense was in the new foundations, adding an estimated $20k. The dead end was bylaws not allowing for what I consider a traditional basement. The city is afraid of allowing a basement that may become flooded with a 100 year rain event. The street storm drains would be above the basement floor and they won't allow back-up pumps for residential buildings. In other cities that solution is common and used.

The sad thing is the builder suggested to use the vinyl because we have a dog and can not have carpet. The builder even made the suggestion to keep the vinyl down and use it as a vapor barrier when we installed the hardwood flooring that we were planning on doing down the road! We did have one plumber suggest that we put down tile throughout the first floor because that would allow the cement pad to "breathe" and that the adhesive (thinset?) would help seal the slab too! Our cabinets sit on the slab, would we need to tile underneath them? I'm off tomorrow so I'm going to dig around the slab and see if I can find the vapor barrier and to see if water drains into the holes... Is it normal for water to bubble up through the cracks (I think they are the pressure seams, or whatever you call them that are supposed to be there) on the driveway when it rains or run the sprinkler system? The driveway is divided into 4 square sections that are big enough for a pickup truck to park on each and they have the seams the concrete company put in making a "t" in the middle of them.

Is it normal for water to bubble up through the cracks (I think they are the pressure seams, or whatever you call them that are supposed to be there) on the driveway when it rains or run the sprinkler system?

NO!

You have some serious water table issues!

Vinyl is never permanent. It only lasts for 10 years or so anyway. So you will have to lift it.

You will have to dry it all out first by trenching it. It may already have been trenched and backfilled with yellow sand. If so, great!! But you might need a pump and a perimiter weeping tile system. Easy to install in sand! There are things to be careful of when digging trenches in sand. Don't make your trench too close to the slab! Other than that, it goes easy.

If you dig down three or four feet and don't hit water, then you don't have a drainage problem...you only have a mold problem. And that can only be fixed by pulling all the vinyl, washing the slab with bleach and installing tile. The counters will have to come up eventually though. I like to do all of that at the same time, but only because I know that "out of sight, out of mind".

Yeah...I understand, the house is worth less than you owe on it. But that will change. You still have to live somewhere!

How close is to close to dig the trenches next to the slab? Should we also do the drains around the driveway and a parking pad on one side of the house? There's only about 2-3 feet between the house and the cement pad. And do you put the trenches under the electircal line coming into the house? Our neighborhood has underground power lines and it runs into the side of the house that has the parking pad beside it. Can you tie the drains into the sewer system for the house? That parts going to be tricky because the grade is wrong.. the backyard is lower than the front so I know we have to have the sump pump that you talked about. Can that be outside if we put it in an enclosure like a shed? Or does it have to be put under the slab of the house? It does get cold here occassionally. Last year we got almost an inch of snow and this year we actually had days here that the low was in the 10's to 20's Farenheit. I think we could possibly tie into a storm drain that is actually infront of my next door neighbors house. Thank you for all of your help... I was devastated at the news when we first found out but thanks to all of your help I actually think this might come out okay! And thanks for answering my questions, I don't really know anything about this type of stuff... my knowledge of this is very limited and it's great to have an idea of the possibilities so that I don't get suckered again!

Now we would have to talk to the building inspector in your area. You don't want to dig a perimeter trench in sand too close to the slab or the slab might slide into it!!!! And you don't want to dig too deep because deep trenches in sand are dangerous. How deep do you need to dig to get good drainage? Again, there are people who know in your area. You might even need a permit in your area to do this work. (I hope so.)

Weeping tiles are plastic pipes with holes in them which are laid in the bottom of the trench, covered with an approved cloth, and backfilled with sand. They drain into a sump pit. The sump pit contains a sump pump which discharges into a storm drain. Because you told me you had nice yellow sand around your house, this may have already been done. This has to be done all the way around the house....though of course, you can have gaps to allow for water, sewer and electricity their access.

The idea is only to lower the water table under your house. This may have already been done. If so, then your problem is a damp concrete slab stuck between two impermiable membranes...of course such a slab would get mouldy! You would have to ventilate one or the other. I have never placed a vapor barrier under a slab...that is only a recent innovation. All of my slabs are dry and well drained.

Bill

Thank you to everyone who has responded. Atleast now I know a few options unlike before when I was basically told to tear the house down and start over... the sad thing is we already owe more than the house is worth and insurance doesn't cover any of this. We were looking at a huge financial mess if the only option was tearing the house down. I appreciate everyone's help. I think I may see a light at the end of the tunnel yet!

My father-in-law had a 40+ year old house that had a traditonal 6.5 ft basement. The basement walls weeped and the floor was always damp. Tools rusted and it smelled musty all the time. One summer he "hired" his son to hand dig around the house down to the bottom of the footings, and install drainage pipe (that conveniently led to a downslope hill side). He then applied bitumen to the walls, back filled with drainage stone, and sloped the final grade away from the foundation walls.

The next season the basement walls were dry, the floor was dry, and the musty smell was gone. (He did have to toss a number of old cartons and camping gear that had been previously stored in the basement.)

Fixes are possible.

If you do not have a convenient drainage point you will need to pump.

The organic flooring will need to be removed.

Probably the bottom foot or so of dry wall will need to be removed also.

Dry everything out.

Make sure you eaves are drained well away from the home.

(Personally I think houses on slab are just evil. I will take a crawl space any day.)

Thoughts-

-Your house may have been built in a hole with the yellow sand trucked in. Do the neighbors have the sand?

-I dried out a basement a few months ago which had water entering from the edges and cracks in the slab and through the walls. The slab had been drilled with holes to allow the water previously there to run out. Whenever it then rained, extra water would run in. Treatment-waterproof the walls, reseal the basement door, and direct roof gutters away from the house perimeter. Result - dry for the first time in fifteen years.

-I lived in a rental that was built on a hillside with water running in the uphill side, through the basement, and out the downhill side at grade. The basement floor had a channel about 2"X2" running all around the edge. This channel had a stream running through it 24 hours a day, but there was no mold, no mustiness, no smell. It felt dry.

- I lived in a house that was the sexton's quarters for a church. The doors were not closing throughout the house because the floors were bending down because the support pillars under the inside of the house were washing away from the water that ran through whenever it rained. I was told that it had been like that for years and it would require a new foundation to stop the settling. Four hours on my day off with a shovel regrading around the basement window next to my neighbors driveway and the basement was dry as a bone and the settling stopped.

- I maintain two houses that have had sump holes cut into the slab and an automatic sump pump installed, pumping out to grade. One is completely dry after further gutter drainage with the pump not in use, the other has a dry, pleasant office installed. The automatic dehumidifier no longer needs to be emptied daily, it does not even run (set at 40%).

The point of these true stories is that there is a lot that can be done for a lot less money than what has been suggested in some of these posts. In fact, the only time I did not solve a wet basement problem ( solving meaning making the basement functionally dry with no mold, no smell, and no high humidity) was when the owner had called someone else to tar the basement walls, and the someone else had coated the INSIDE of the basement and literally everything in it with tar. I did not take on that job, I do not like exposure to tar. Granted, it was an excellent tar job, but the wooden stairs, tools, rags, etc? and the tar in supposed to be on the outside of the wall, not the inside. No, I'm not trying to get a job in Charleston, though I loved the year I spent there. Remember that for many repair people their goal is to maximize their income with the least amount of work. The next group wants to maximize income with lots of work. Not many suggest choices that include the least expensive methods that give a low cost, dependable solution. A mixture of the ideas on this thread should work for you. You need to find a local workman who knows local habits of construction (of your builder, if possible). Up here near the City, we have water supply tunnels leaking huge amounts of water into the communities on the way to the City, so local lore is important. Good luck.

Just forget the wet cement and moldy vinyl, go with Terrazzo!

http://terrazzo.com/

A Bit Blatant