All homeowners should do an inspection of their property for mold at one point or another, especially if you own an older home. Even newly constructed homes are not able to escape mold growth if they are not taken care of or were not built properly. There have been incidents of contractors using cheap, low quality materials and these end up causing mold to grow in your home.
Even though the materials were cheap and low quality, there is nothing that you can do as long as the building was constructed up to your local building codes. You can try to pursue a legal case against the contractor, but you are not likely to get anything if they did everything up to code.
If you suspect that there is mold in the house due to a musty smell or sudden symptoms that do not appear when you are out of the house, there are a few different places that you should start. Look around in the areas of you home that large amounts of water pass through every day, like the bathroom, laundry room, kitchen, and basement. These are areas where water is likely to be and where there are water leaks, mold will soon follow.
The bathroom is the worst offender when it comes to mold. This is usually where mold is found when it is found inside a home, since so much water goes through this area every day, especially if you have 2 or more people living with you. The floor of your bathroom should be completely water tight and if it is not, you need to do what you have to in order to get it that way. Water getting under the tile or linoleum or whatever you have on the floor in your bathroom will rot the floor joists over time.
Whether the floor is waterproofed or not, try not to leave the floor wet. Your bathroom should also have a window or an exhaust vent installed in the ceiling, since most building codes require one of the two.
Exhaust vents should also be in the kitchen, laundry room, and basement. These will help remove the excess humidity from the room and stop it from collecting on the ceiling. Ceilings will soak up a huge amount of water over time and this both discolors and weakens them. This can eventually cause the ceiling to collapse and as you might guess, this is very dangerous.
Replace any appliances that use large amounts of water if they malfunction on a regular basis. You will be better off replacing them than repairing the water damage they do to your floors later on
Water Damage In Home
In some cases it can be very shallow and more often than not you literally have to crawl when under your house. Sometimes these crawl spaces are equipped with lights, but in most of older homes they are not.
You might wonder why you would ever need to go under there anyway, but there are a few reasons. Ever so often you need to check and see if there is standing water under there.
This is a more frequent problem than you think, especially with older homes whose foundations might not be as waterproof as they once were. There are vents that may be installed around your foundation that will automatically open and close to allow moisture under your house to dry out.
Older homes may not have these, but you should probably get them. They are not that expensive and are fairly easy to put in. When there is always excessive moisture or standing water under your house, it can cause the wood to eventually start rotting and lead to structural problems. This would be the first reason to look under there.
The second reason is just as important as the first. Leaking pipes is something that can also cause water to stand under your home. Your main water line comes into your home from here. In homes with older plumbing, rust spots and leaking connections can develop easily.
Even with newer plumbing leaks can happen if the plumbing was installed poorly or incorrectly. Anytime water is leaking or spraying and coming into contact with wood there is potential for water damage and it can happen more quickly and with less water than you might think.
Under the house is also where your outside water spigots and the start of your sewer pipes are located. The spigots might not present much of a problem, but a faulty sewer line coming out of your house certainly can be. It can create a terribly nasty, unsanitary and extremely smelly mess fast!
Any leaking under your house needs to be attended to as soon as possible. You might not think it is really hurting anything if there is water under there, but it could be hurting a lot more than you know.
Jim Corkern has sinced written about articles on various topics from Home, Health and Guide Guitar. Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality companies and. Jim Corkern's top article generates over 823000 views. to your Favourites.
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