Study Shows Living in Damp Homes Increases Risk of Illness.

A recent survey of healthy people in Sweden identified an increased risk for building related illness when dampness or mold is present in the home.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “the term “sick building syndrome” (SBS), is used to describe situations in which building occupants experience acute health and comfort effects that appear to be linked to time spent in a building, but no specific illness or cause can be identified. The complaints may be localized in a particular room or zone, or may be widespread throughout the building. In contrast, the term “building related illness” (BRI) is used when symptoms of diagnosable illness are identified and can be attributed directly to airborne building contaminants.”

Symptoms of building related illness include fatigue, mental confusion, sluggishness, sore throat, headache, and other health complaints which present shortly after entering a sick building. Because symptoms are generally alleviated when away from a sick building and sick building syndrome has been closely examined only in occupational settings, building related illness is often initially dismissed as a person wishing to avoid going to school or work.

A signal that it may be building related illness is a worsening or alleviating of symptoms in certain parts of a building, or upon taking a break outdoors.

The most likely causes of sick buildings include inadequate ventilation, chemical contaminants, from indoor sources such as adhesives, carpets, upholstery, manufactures wood products, copy machines, pesticides, and cleaning agents, chemical contaminants from outdoor sources and biological contaminants.

The easiest way to prevent a sick building is to eliminate sources of pollution, increasing ventilation, use air cleaning devices, and educate/communicate with building inhabitants. The researchers also found that people who develop sick building syndrome from an occupational building are more likely to remain ill if they also live in a damp dwelling.

Dampness leads to mold and mold may lead to illness. Sahlberg and colleagues say, “Reducing dampness in buildings is an important factor for reducing symptoms in the general population.”

References Sahlberg B, Wieslander G, Norback D. Sick building syndrome in relation to domestic exposure in Sweden-a cohort study from 1991 to 2001. Scand J Public Health. 2010 May; 38(3):232-8. Epub 2009 Oct 22.

US Environmental Protection Agency, Initials. (2010, April 26). Indoor air facts no. 4 (revised) sick building syndrome. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/iedweb00/pubs/sbs.html

As I’ve stated in previous posts, faulty stucco installation is a very common problem, especially in this part of the country. According to Dr. Joseph Lstiburek of buildingscience.com, Canada is the stucco failure country of the world and our area (the Northeast) is the leading stucco failure area of the United States.

We do a lot of stucco investigations/assessments and in the course of doing so we find a common theme – they are mostly installed without an understanding of what a stucco cladding needs in order to perform as it should.

Stucco is a good exterior cladding system if installed properly. It is a big step up from vinyl siding and less costly than brick or stone. Many of our clients get a bad taste in their mouth for stucco once we educate them to the particular deficiencies and damage to their stucco homes. When it comes to recommendations for repair, I’m often asked if they should consider not using stucco for the exterior cladding, as it seems so problematic. My response is, you do have options, but properly installed, stucco cladding is a good option.

This week alone I’ve received three calls from stucco homeowners where the builder acknowledged it was their fault and consequently they would fix it. The solution in all three cases was: remove the stucco just around the windows, pull the windows and flash the openings. In addition, they would address the lack of kick-out flashings. Although you could say it is commendable that they are taking responsibility, aren’t they the same ones who installed it incorrectly in the first place. This approach is a waste of time and money. If there is no proper drainage plane in place, they cannot incorporate this patch job into a properly functioning system. For one of these homeowners, it was the second time the builder had tried this approach and water was still coming in through windows and musty odors in the home revealed water was still getting into the wall cavities and mold was growing in behind the gypsum wall board.

If you have a stucco home and you suspect you might have a problem or if the builder wants to fix it, have a stucco inspection performed first so that you might be able to present the builder with a report that details how to fix it properly.

Contact us at www.advancedmolddiagnostics.com for a free telephone consultation.

I was recently called out to a residence to ascertain whether there was a mold problem or not in an attic. A local builder who was aware of mold remediation work we had done at the (HBA) Home Builders Office in Chester County had referred the client to me.

He wasn’t sure if the stains on some of the building materials in the attic were mold or not, he didn’t think so, but wanted to be cautious. One of the aspects that made the situation so interesting was that he was called out to renovate all the interior walls and floors as the insurance company was picking up the tab based on ice damming.

Upon arriving the homeowner proceeded to describe how water had just poured out the top of most of the windows and cascaded down the walls onto the hardwood floors of the first floor. I found the attic bone dry including all the way down into the eaves. I couldn’t find a single elevated moisture reading or thermal image indicating that anything was wet. The dark wood stains were nothing more than different wood species that had been used for the four hip rafters of the mansard roof 35 years ago. Mold doesn’t grow on one piece of framing and not on the ones adjoining it, certainly not repeating that pattern in all four corners.

The second floor had sustained some damage; thermal imaging detected some moisture in the interstitial cavities, but not what I would have suspected. Going into the basement with the homeowner she explained how water just poured off the steel I-beam in the basement.

The last piece of this unique water intrusion was on the first floor bearing wall running right through the middle of the house. Water had run down the wall heavily 18′ from the left elevation wall towards the kitchen ruining the hardwood floors. You could see the water stains on the gypsum wallboard.

So, how did the water come in especially down interior walls by-passing the attic and the ceilings on the second floor? The answer…ice damming allowed water to pour out of the soffits and through capillary action it ran across the bottom of the soffit and behind the faulty stucco cladding as there was no sealant joint at the stucco to soffit intersection. From there, it just ran down behind the stucco and into the cavities at the window heads because the windows were not flashed properly and there was no properly installed drainage plane in place. The interior wall issue was also related to the lack of a drainage plane because the water just ran in along the bearing wall.

Faulty stucco installation is way more common then most people realize. If you suspect that you might have issues with your stucco, contact us as www.advancedmolddiagnostics.com to find out what options you have for investigating it.

It seems that we’ve been spared once again. The floods that impacted the Tennessee area weeks ago are keeping my suppliers of mold remediation projects quite busy. There’s not a week that goes by that I don’t come across an article or press release on how mold is impacting the homes & businesses in that area. Another common thread amongst these articles is that many suppliers of mold remediation products are responding to meet the needs of mold remediation contractors. It doesn’t take a torrential downpour like they experienced to have mold rear its ugly head. Just this past week I’ve been called out to 2 properties for mold inspections where they were unsure if the drying project to eliminate mold was performed correctly. Wow, is this Deja Vu or what, as I seem to have written a similar article recently. One was commercial & one residential where the property owners were concerned that they might still have a mold and indoor air quality issue. The latter was one where the contractor who remodeled the basement wired the sump pump to a light switch that got turned off and when it rained they had 2? of water in their beautiful, newly furnished basement. The contractor took responsibility and brought in one large dehumidifier. During the mold inspection process, I noted many things the contractor had done correctly such as keeping the GWB (gypsum wall board) a 1/2? off the floor and installing an interior french drain. After scouring over all the contents and building materials I found only one piece of furniture that had mold growth on it. Turns out this was an antique that had been brought in from an unconditioned warehouse. Translation, it could have come in with the mold on it. I had noted, that although the cabinets had not had the kick-plates removed, they were elevated off the concrete slab with shims. As I was completing my mold assessment by utilizing infra-red thermography of the exterior and interior partition wall and the bottom of the high end cabinets for the wet bar, I noticed some thermal anomalies. After scanning with a non-invasive moisture meter and getting elevated readings, I removed the kick-plates only to find mold growing on the back side of them. Invasive moisture meter readings confirmed what the infra-red images had shown. The base of the cabinets had elevated WME (wood moisture equivalent) readings and VMLG (visible mold-like growth) which was later confirmed with swab samples. If only the contractor had the sense to educate himself or bring in a professional schooled in structural drying within the first 48 hours, he could have prevented the mold growth. The end result now is he will end up having to rip out tiled counter top that the cabinets support along with replacing the cabinets. The commercial project was new construction that just been rented out after being vacant and unconditioned for 18 months. The tenant moved in with over 400k of office furniture and supplies. They had been noticing a musty odor every time it rained. After talking with other tenants, they were told that the drywall was installed before the building envelope was closed and some of the building materials had grown mold on them. The developer had his crews wipe it off with bleach and paint it, not the proper way to clean mold. Again, bringing in the mold remediation professionals would have prevented him from now having to pay to have all the tenants contents cleaned as well as removing and replacing most of the impacted GWB at considerable expense. In both cases our clients contracted Advanced Mold Diagnostics to do mold testing and mold inspection which proved to be the prudent thing to do in both cases.

An expensive lesson learned by the parties now responsible for footing the bill? Unfortunately, I doubt it.

Craig Camel

Advanced Mold Diagnostics

Advanced Building Strategies

This time of year we are often called out for problem with mold growth in attics. The main reasons for this to occur are as follows:

* Improper attic ventilation
* Venting bathroom exhausts into attic space
* Venting clothes dryer exhaust into attic space
* Inadequate insulation or missing insulation
* Ice damming
* Poor installation and/or aging of roofing materials

I’m going to start with the first one, improper attic ventilation. Proper ventilation is recognized by building science experts as a requirement for preventing microbial growth, preventing shortening the life expectancy of roofing materials and removal of potentially harmful gases via the stack effect.

All of the building codes – BOCA National Building Code, International Building Code, Standard Building Code and Uniform Building Code require attic space to be ventilated.

Generally, codes require a minimum net free ventilating area for attic vents to be 1-150 ratio of the attic space. This rate can be adjusted to 1-300 if attic vents are balanced. Some of these ventilation requirements are more than 60 years old and considered inadequate by some. ASHRAE’s (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers) position on ventilation is an attempt to prevent condensation from occurring on the underside of roof sheathing. ASHRAE’s 1997 Fundamentals Handbook cites several disadvantages to providing attic ventilation. Basically, in warm humid climates venting can increase vapor pressure (relative humidity) and condensation issues, so, it has to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. For colder climates, the benefits generally outweigh the disadvantages. We are in what we call a mixed-use climate. It is generally agreed by building science experts and myself in the building science arena that proper attic ventilation is the way to go.