Re: long term flooded crawlspace

[Guest guest]

My thinking is they need to address the water issue before doing anything else. They need to install a drain tile on the perimeter or a low point drain in the crawl. They also need to replace all the ducting and clean up the rodent mess. Air sampling I think would be inconclusive and irrelevant at this point . For some reason construction people left wood in the foundation often, I've seen them myself on many occasion. Do you see any three dimensional mold growth at this time? Just my opinion.

long term flooded crawlspace

Asked to do a water intrusion investigation on a 1978 house built on compacted sand and clay fill in a flood basin on the Oregon Coast. Footing is aproximately 20 inches below grade with a 30 inch stemwall. When the footing/stemwall was poored, 1x4 lumber was left in the footing at the footing to stem wall joint on aprox. 4 foot centers around the perimeter of a 21 X 28 foot foundation.Nearly every penatration leaks rain run off into the crawlspace.All insulation had saturated and fallen into the ponding water and all but one of the retrofit heating systems ducts had fallen off the boots and only a short 3 foot run was connected to the plenum.Rats had used what remaining insulation that was at the girder level and still dry as toilets.They also had bored into the ducting that hung in the ponding water to get to the high dry areas to do the same.When the heater was removed from the the plenum the half of the plenum that moves air up to the second floor was filled with at least 250 rat droppings covered with white growth and I would assume urine. The water rises and falls with rain levels and there are indications that the level has on a few occasions gone above the piers and done light damage to posts below girders.Advised owner to get air quality testing done to no avail.Any issues?Diseases etc.FAIR USE NOTICE:This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

[Guest guest]

Thanks , I did removal of debris and re-install of insulation

with 6 mil poly at the plane of the bottom of the girders as there

seemed no use to putting vapor barrier on the soil as it will just

pond over anyway. This is now a job in the history book for me as

the owner felt financialy taken advantage of to pay for professional

remediation as he could get street labor from his Portland area and

bus them down to do the drain field instead of using a qualified

foundation and drain field installer.Amazingly enough with old

growth 2 x 10 subfloor, perpendicular to the 4 x 6 girders all I

could see was concrete on what were obviosly the form boards used in

the foundation.No visible growth after 26 years of winter flooding.

My main concern is really the rodent waste in the air handling

system.There are some nice photos of the mess in the photos

section.I also installed a sump basin and pump at the worst location

to at least control how high the water can pond.The owner is of all

things a Real Estate Agent from Lake Oswego and this second

home/beach house was purchased without a full inspection and the

home inspecter refused to go into the crawl due to the conditon.He

purchased anyway.Nice to see a realtor get the proper end of an

erroneus inspection. ,

> My thinking is they need to address the water issue before doing

anything else. They need to install a drain tile on the perimeter or

a low point drain in the crawl. They also need to replace all the

ducting and clean up the rodent mess. Air sampling I think would be

inconclusive and irrelevant at this point . For some reason

construction people left wood in the foundation often, I've seen

them myself on many occasion. Do you see any three dimensional mold

growth at this time? Just my opinion.

>

> long term flooded crawlspace

>

>

>

>

> Asked to do a water intrusion investigation on a 1978 house

built

> on compacted sand and clay fill in a flood basin on the Oregon

> Coast. Footing is aproximately 20 inches below grade with a 30

inch

> stemwall. When the footing/stemwall was poored, 1x4 lumber was

left

> in the footing at the footing to stem wall joint on aprox. 4

foot

> centers around the perimeter of a 21 X 28 foot foundation.Nearly

> every penatration leaks rain run off into the crawlspace.All

> insulation had saturated and fallen into the ponding water and

all

> but one of the retrofit heating systems ducts had fallen off the

> boots and only a short 3 foot run was connected to the

plenum.Rats

> had used what remaining insulation that was at the girder level

and

> still dry as toilets.They also had bored into the ducting that

hung

> in the ponding water to get to the high dry areas to do the

> same.When the heater was removed from the the plenum the half of

the

> plenum that moves air up to the second floor was filled with at

> least 250 rat droppings covered with white growth and I would

assume

> urine. The water rises and falls with rain levels and there are

> indications that the level has on a few occasions gone above the

> piers and done light damage to posts below girders.Advised owner

to

> get air quality testing done to no avail.Any issues?Diseases etc.

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

> FAIR USE NOTICE:

>

> This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not

always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are

making such material available in our efforts to advance

understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,

democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe

this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as

provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance

with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is

distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior

interest in receiving the included information for research and

educational purposes. For more information go to:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use

copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go

beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright

owner.

>

>

>