Concrete Dust?

July 2, 2006

The hallmark of my sick house 10 years ago was efflorescence forming on the

garage floor, which was the lowest concrete slab in the house.

The problem was moisture coming up through the slabs, continuously. A substance

-- which was never identified despite the expenditure of >$10K in testing and

drawing on the expertise of several highly recommended CIH and other experts --

came into the house with that moisture, caused flulike symptoms especially in

sensitized individuals, and most likely was related to an ultrafine white dust

we observed after the house had been evacuated for 6 months.

In retrospect 10 years later, I think the substance was a metal in soluble form.

Whether it came from the soil, the concrete, or something from the soil playing

ion-exchange as the water wicked through the slab will never be known.

We fixed the drainage problem (twice, before we got it right) and that stopped

whatever was coming into the house. " The bottom of the french drains must be at

least the wicking height of the soil below the base of the stemwalls. "

The importance of the house being only two years old is that something leached

from the soil has had time to reach the interior of the house, but not enough