Uh oh... gotta cut in-wall metal conduit for new outlet!

[miamicanes]

> What info are you willing to lie about when YOU fill out a disclosure form?

I'll say there's no mold problem with a completely clean conscience, because by that point at least 2/3 of the house's drywall will have been torn out and replaced with mold-resistant paper-free drywall, or (in the case of interior walls) had the areas BEHIND them cleaned and coated at some point with antimicrobials and sealed with something like Fiberlock Aftershock. Frankly, at that point, my house will be more mold-free than probably ANY house of comparable age... including homes that were "professionally remediated", but had their drywall replaced with more paper-covered drywall and probably didn't have any enduring antifungals left behind.

I made an appointment with a mold inspector who's coming tomorrow, and is perfectly cool with his official task of determining whether the mold is the lasting legacy of some past interior flooding, or whether there's some ongoing moisture problem I need to fix and helping me to locate it. I also bought enough Georgia Pacific paper-free drywall, Aftershock, non-bleach based cleaning solution, and pressure-treated 1x2 wood to replace the lower 4 feet of the entire living room's drywall once I'm confident that any water problem is taken care of. Why only the bottom half? I can drywall the lower 4 feet of the room by myself. To do the upper 4 feet, I'd have to hire someone, and from what I can tell, the bulk of visible mold is within the lowermost foot.

One thing that lots of people forget is that official safety standards aren't created to protect people who might encounter the hazard for a few days once or twice in their lives... they're created to protect people who encounter and confront that hazard on a daily basis. Could someone with asthma die trying to clear up their own mold problem? Probably. Is a random twenty/thirtysomething who inhales random mold spores likely to die from it? No. He might end up hating life in general for a few weeks if he inhales the wrong mycotoxins and gets sick, but in the grand scheme of things, he'll be less miserable in the long run than he'd have been paying off $20-40k in debt run up having a mold problem "officially" remediated. Read the literature. There's not a single documented case where a non-elderly adult, with neither asthma nor AIDS, actually DIED (or even suffered permanent injury) while doing DIY mold removal. Mold makes lots of people miserable, and removal + prevention of it is a good thing. But somewhere along the line, the mold remediation industry has managed to scare people shitless about something that every single building in the state of Florida (and most other parts of the country) has growing in it somewhere.

Plus, don't forget the theatre aspect of mold remediation. If someone showed up with a disposable facemask and HEPA canister vac to remediate your mold problem, you'd probably be pissed as hell if they handed you a bill for several thousand dollars. But if they show up in full biohazard garb, looking like they're about to do maintenance work on the Chernobyl sarcophagus, spray lots of foamy chemicals around, and haul away the debris in steel barrels with ominous biohazard warnings (and maybe even a blinking red LED somewhere, just for good measure), they'll easily scare the homeowner to death, and leave them convinced that their services were worth every penny.

 

[carry15+1]

One of the weekend radio home improvement shows recently talked about getting rid of mold. They said bleach will NOT do it. They recommended a product called sporiclean. I suppose there are many products out there, but don't count on bleach to do the job.

 

[miamicanes]

One of the weekend radio home improvement shows recently talked about getting rid of mold. They said bleach will NOT do it. They recommended a product called sporiclean. I suppose there are many products out there, but don't count on bleach to do the job.

The problem with bleach is that it does a WONDERFUL job of killing mold on the surface, and taking away its scary black color... but isn't strong enough to penetrate most porous surfaces (and would destroy them if it were), fails to destroy most of the spores (so they can come right back when the conditions are favorable), and most importantly... very few mold species actually "infect" people per se and cause problems by growing inside them... it's the presence of the mold itself (dead OR alive) that causes problems. In fact, some molds are MORE hazardous dead than alive.

I had a fairly enlightening conversation with some employees at the store where I bought some supplies this afternoon. It can basically be summed up as:

* Absolutely, positively, wear a "N95" rated face mask. There's no excuse not to. They're cheap, and you can even buy them at Home Depot & Lowe's (I know, because I did). You won't necessarily get sick if you don't, but it's such a trivially cheap and easy precaution to take, you'd have to be insane not to.

* If cost is an object, focus on the areas where mold is the most abundant. If the lower foot of drywall is crusted black, and there's no trace at all on the upper 7 feet (or at worst a scattered black dot or two), worry about the lower foot or two, and make sure that whatever you replace it with isn't a hospitable living environment for mold. They aren't sentient. They don't go hunting for food, or lead a migratory subsistence lifestyle. If a spore lands somewhere with food and water, they grow and flourish. If it lands somewhere without food or water, it sits there and waits "forever" for food and water to appear if it has to. If you take away their "garden of eden", they won't simply relocate and bloom 2 feet further away. If the area 2 feet away were hospitable to them, they'd be flourishing there ALREADY.

* Buy mid-line AC filters and replace them every day or two during removal, and once a week or so for a month or two afterward. You'll remove more mold spores from the air with new, clean, electrostatically-active middle-of-the-line (~$4-8/ea) filters than you will with a $20 Filtrete Ultra filter that's a month old and crusted black because it was too expensive to change more frequently.

* Before you do anything, figure out how to dry up their water supply. Before you kill, vacuum away as many as you can (remember, some mold are more dangerous dead than alive). If cost is a big deal, forget the HEPA vac, and spend your money on one with a strong enough motor and long enough hose so the unit itself can sit OUTSIDE while you're vacuuming instead. If the vacuum is inside and the HEPA filter fails, you're screwed. If the vacuum is outside, the HEPA filter is academic (but kill the power by pulling the plug, and have a nice pool of mold-killing solution in the wet-dry vac's bucket).

* Don't use bleach, for the reasons I listed earlier. At best, it'll give you a false sense of security. At worst, you'll be ripping drywall out again in 3 months.

* Remember -- killing mold is WAY less important than taking away its water supply and physically removing (or encapsulating) it. Take away their water, and they'll die on their own, even if you don't get them removed. Kill them, but leave conditions hospitable to their existence, and it'll only be a matter of weeks or months until another spore drifts in from somewhere, hits the jackpot, and spawns a very, very large family.

* If you're doing any project that involves exposing the bare walls of a "wet" room, go all the way and replace the drywall with tileboard or paper-free drywall while you're at it. If it's a bathroom in a house more than 6 months old, it's almost GUARANTEED that there's ALREADY lots of mold growing behind the drywall. From what they said, based on what everybody knows now, it should be criminally negligent for a builder to even THINK about using paper-backed drywall (water-resistant or not) anywhere NEAR a bathroom, even if building codes still grudgingly tolerate it. If you're building a brand new house, and you're in a position to dictate the specifications... specify paper-free drywall. Yeah, it costs 50% more than normal drywall... but the cost of the drywall itself is only a fraction of its total installation cost anyway when you factor in labor and supplies, and you'll make back every penny of it in savings the first time you're spared the need to rip out and replace drywall 5-20 years down the line due to what would have been a mold infestation.

 

[tmbrown97]

Mold isn't nearly as bad as people made it sound. Granted, I don't want to live in it - but honestly, it's not that big a deal. I even lived with the lovely black mold in my house for a couple of years as a kid following flooding in our area. Like miamicanes said, those things are for people who live/work in heavy mold-filled environments daily. Same with asbestos - you see how they treat it during remediation - but honestly, you can go swim in your asbestos filled attic all day long, and you'll end up with a scratch throat for a few days, but you'll be fine in the long run.

Respectable doctors really don't give a crap about mold unless you have a job that puts you in it all day.

Sounds like you're committed to going a tad overboard to replace and protect the studs and drywall - that's more than most. As long as you stop the moisture, you stop the spreading - it'll just die off. The spores won't fly off unless they're disturbed. Clean what you can, kill it with a good treatment, and paint the walls and that'll handle most. Nothing wrong with extra peace-of-mind, so while I won't try to talk you out of doing the work, at least feel confident that it's more than enough.

Bleach only kills surface mold and bleaches it so it looks like it's gone - makes you feel better but is otherwise worthless. Also, there's about 4 kinds of Killz - only one or two offer the heavy mold protection - and they don't offer as good of stain protection - depends on long-term goals. Gets expensive quickly though.

Also - there was a question about the mold tests - they test for the presence of mold in the air basically by opening a petri dish and leaving it exposed. You can put one in each room, close the room off, and see which is worse afterwards - but just for fun, put 1 outdoors and it'll be almost as bad as the indoor ones.

When we bought our current house we were concerned that mold may be an issue - but during our remodel we replaced anything we could find a trace of it on... Eventually we realized our breathing problems were caused by problems with the ducts in our HVAC picking up insulation particles from the attic - replacing all the ductwork fixed our symptoms within a few days.


Back to your electrical thing for a moment too... Now that you'll have the walls open, you can do anything you want! But at one point you mentioned running romex so it wouldn't matter that the box wasn't connected to the conduit... problem is, you can't have romex inside conduit - you can't have triple-insulated wiring. You'd need to couple the box to the conduit and remove the sleeve from the romex so it's just the exposed wires in the conduit. I'd imagine one of those low-clearance circular cutters you use for copper could do the job if you still had the tight quarters situation...

Either way, good luck... And don't let people make you believe this stuff is so horrible - you don't want the problem to continue, but if you stop the source and stop it from spreading, you're pretty well off.

 

[123]

... pressure-treated 1x2 wood

Check your local building code on that ... most pressure-treated wood is for exterior use only.

Practically speaking, sealing it up in a wall will effectively prevent anyone from coming into contact with it (and its anti-rot treatment). But you never know if it'll be on the list of "building materials from hell" when it comes time to sell your home.

Oh, and is that urea-formaldehyde foam insulation? :blink:

 

[Steve]

Todd: No disrespect intended and you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but besides the few accurate points like about bleach and cleaning up the source, there are overall some very dangerous implications you make.

The fact is that mold can be dangerous and it can kill. One of the keys, as BSR stated earlier, is to test and find the exact strain of mold. There are many molds that are black in color and some are more dangerous than others. Some of the dangerous strains, like the 'Stachybotrys Chartarum' mentioned appear greenish-black in color. They can produce mycotoxins that can make you very sick. Many times you will start with breathing or cold/flu symptoms. And a child, or someone with a weakened immune system is especially at risk.

Respectable doctors really don't give a crap about mold unless you have a job that puts you in it all day.

Thats's not a respectable doctor, it's a clueless moron who should lose his license. Would you rather work around mold 8 hours a day or LIVE in it the rest of the day.

The problem with alot of mold is you don't even see it, you don't even know its there until you remove some infected material. Most people like probably the previous owners in miamicanes places probably just saw a little black after the flood and bleached it and painted over it. I spotted it right away in that picture and it proves bleach and paint do not work, it simply masks the problem.

The mold test is not JUST for testing for presence, its also for testing the type which is very important.

The bottom line as has been stated already is the most important thing to do is stop the source! Then very thorough cleaning and encapsulating.

Yes, there are many other things that may cause health issues like you discovered with your ducts, but don't ever underestimate the potential effects of toxic mold. Many people have died from their own homes that they consider safe when the toxic spores have lived in the walls, etc. Granted, it usually takes a very large outbreak to kill, but even small amounts can cause negative health consequences. Find out what you are dealing with and treat it with the respect it deserves.

 

[miamicanes]

... pressure-treated 1x2 wood

Check your local building code on that ... most pressure-treated wood is for exterior use only.

Practically speaking, sealing it up in a wall will effectively prevent anyone from coming into contact with it (and its anti-rot treatment). But you never know if it'll be on the list of "building materials from hell" when it comes time to sell your home.

Oh, and is that urea-formaldehyde foam insulation? :blink:

Hmmm. As I understand it, in Florida, any wood that comes into direct contact with concrete MUST be pressure-treated due to the practical reality of mold and termites in a swamp climate... but I think we now have two kinds of pressure-treated wood: the traditional green-colored kind, and a more expensive clear-colored kind. It's possible that only the newer kind can be used for building construction.

I DO remember reading about a big debate over the theoretical risk to children coming in contact with PT sawdust, vs the benefits of using PT wood for anything structural that might conceivably rot, during a recent revision to the Florida Building Code. From what I remember, the decision was to keep using PT everywhere, but require PT playground equipment to be painted.

I'm not sure about the urea-formaldehyde foam insulation. I can take a closeup pic of it if it's not obvious what type it is from the other pics. It's the color of brown mustard, and looks like it was squirted or poured into the gap between the drywall and concrete wall and expanded. I scraped away a little bit to look at the concrete behind it in one of the moldy areas, and didn't see any evidence of mold on the concrete itself.

 

[miamicanes]

Yay, good news!

According to the inspector, the entire area around the mold is totally dry, and appears to be exactly what I thought it was... the enduring legacy of a single flooding episode that probably originated in the downstairs bathroom. He was pretty impressed by the fact that I already had the sheet up, the masks, the paper-free drywall, the microban, and the Aftershock. He also tested the bathrooms, and basically confirmed what we both already knew... there's no specific water problem per se in either one (drywall and studs both tested "dry"), but whomever put vinyl wallpaper in them years ago was a complete idiot, and without a doubt the back of that wallpaper is almost certainly black.

His advice with regard to the bathrooms was "absolutely, positively, DO NOT tear up or disturb either the wallpaper or drywall in either bathroom until I'm prepared (financially, physically, and emotionally) to go all the way and gut the rooms down to the bare concrete and studs after boarding my cats for a week and sealing off the rooms, because it's not going to be pretty or pleasant when the wallpaper comes off." He said that he had good news, and bad news... the bad news being that the drywall in the bathrooms is almost certainly as moldy as it can possibly get... the good news being that as long as I don't disturb it, it's unlikely to get much worse than it already is.

On the brighter side, he was EXTREMELY impressed by the complete lack of moisture ANYWHERE in the house. He said he's seen very, VERY few Florida homes that are 25+ years old with no trace of a problem due to exterior water intrusion. Chalk up one more vote for the merits of building Florida homes with 100% concrete, slab to roof. :blink:

So... I'm off to buy a wet/dry vac with extra hose, and get ready to clean up the room and prepare to hang the new drywall tomorrow!

 

[mustangcoupe]

:blink:-->QUOTE(Todd B @ Sep 6 2008, 12:12 AM) [post="95902"][/post]
I'd imagine one of those low-clearance circular cutters you use for copper could do the job if you still had the tight quarters situation...[/quote]


Those wont work as the blade is designed for soft copper. Believe me.. been there done that. The blade will be gone/dull quicker then you know it.

 

[123]

... in Florida, any wood that comes into direct contact with concrete MUST be pressure-treated ... we now have two kinds of pressure-treated wood: the traditional green-colored kind, and a more expensive clear-colored kind.

I'm not sure about the urea-formaldehyde foam insulation. ...

That makes a lot of sense for your climate; confirm the type of wood treatment used in PT lumber in new buildings.

The UF foam question was just my feeble attempt at humour. Like you don't have enough headaches, maybe you also have 'bad foam' ... asbestos ceiling tiles, hey, maybe even aluminum wiring! :blink:

Actually, the current line of thinking is that the health problems in homes with urea-formaldehyde foam are not due to the foam off-gassing but to poor air-exchange. Drafty old homes were made more air-tight, increased humidity, and encouraged mold-growth ... and it's the mold that caused the health problems. Whatever; I wouldn't worry about the foam.

 

[miamicanes]

>hey, maybe even aluminum wiring!

Oh shit, that reminds me. I *do* have a Zinsco breaker box that I need to have ripped out and replaced eventually (definitely NOT a DIY project). Those damn breaker boxes are EVERYWHERE in Florida homes and condos built during the early 80s (small builders bought THOUSANDS at closeout prices, not caring that the future homeowners would be unable to buy replacement parts for them). Sylvania/Zinsco basically quit making them and pulled all replacement parts from the market after a few lawsuits over fires started by them. The tragic irony is that their act of abandoning it and making replacement parts impossible to buy has probably caused more fires than the boxes themselves ever did. Since their abandonment, quite a few analysts have concluded that it wasn't the breaker panels that were at fault after all, but as a result of Sylvania's decision people are NOW put in the position of having to replace the entire box (not exactly pocket change) if one single breaker in it goes bad, and what lots of people have been doing for years is buying salvaged parts to replace the ones that can't be bought new anymore. Or even more unspeakable things, like kludging secondary 4-circuit breakers onto to it and bypassing the Zinsco box for the circuit(s) with the broken breaker(s). Or overloading circuits by doubling them up. Basically, anything to avoid the cost of replacing the whole box.

If nothing else, it illustrates something I've come to believe in passionately... never, EVER buy into something that's proprietary to a single vendor if you can avoid it. At least, not unless it's something so pervasive that third-party sources for replacement parts once the patent(s) expire are almost assured. The only thing worse than an abandoned, proprietary item is an abandoned, proprietary item whose IP owner is determined to banish it from the market and keep anyone ELSE from supporting it, either.

Oh, also, I checked the house's original blueprints (I bought a microfilmed copy from the City after buying it). The original furring strips were explicitly specified as "PT". :blink:

 

[miamicanes]

OK, for anyone interested in the ongoing drama, here's my freshly-remediated, half-denuded wall... almost ready for the new conduit and outlet boxes, assuming I can actually find someone in Broward or Dade county who sells 1-1/4" deep boxes on Monday (and they aren't closed for a potential hurricane):



I decided to just rent a wet/dry vac from Home Depot instead of buying one. For what I would have paid for a tiny one that I would have THEN had to find a place to store, and been neurotic about for weeks (due to the millions of spores left behind after emptying it), I was able to rent a huge, powerful one that didn't just suck up the mold... it sucked up the drywall dust and debris like a champ.

I have to admit that I'm kind of scratching my head over the 1x4 next to the power outlet on the left. I would have expected them to either nail the box to the furring strip (shifting the outlet ~4 inches left as a result), or screw the box directly into the concrete with a couple of screws through the back. Not to mention the slightly weird furring strip arrangement around and below the old antenna outlet.

While I'm at it... if you look at the lower left pic, the two white cables are for my DirecTV HD-DVR. They run straight through the wall to the outside. I'm tentatively planning to just cut a pair of notches in the furring strip below them, and run them over to the outlet box formerly used for the (long gone) rooftop antenna behind the baseboard below the furring strip... but does anybody have any better ideas? I almost feel like I should be taking this opportunity to install a proper enclosed conduit outside and move the cables into it, but that would presumably entail drilling one or more new/bigger holes through the wall (~8" of reinforced concrete) and having to put new connectors on the coax... neither of which I have the right tools for, nor have ever succeeded at doing...

 

[tmbrown97]

Todd: No disrespect intended and you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but besides the few accurate points like about bleach and cleaning up the source, there are overall some very dangerous implications you make.

The fact is that mold can be dangerous and it can kill. One of the keys, as BSR stated earlier, is to test and find the exact strain of mold. There are many molds that are black in color and some are more dangerous than others. Some of the dangerous strains, like the 'Stachybotrys Chartarum' mentioned appear greenish-black in color. They can produce mycotoxins that can make you very sick. Many times you will start with breathing or cold/flu symptoms. And a child, or someone with a weakened immune system is especially at risk.

Respectable doctors really don't give a crap about mold unless you have a job that puts you in it all day.

Thats's not a respectable doctor, it's a clueless moron who should lose his license. Would you rather work around mold 8 hours a day or LIVE in it the rest of the day.

The problem with alot of mold is you don't even see it, you don't even know its there until you remove some infected material. Most people like probably the previous owners in miamicanes places probably just saw a little black after the flood and bleached it and painted over it. I spotted it right away in that picture and it proves bleach and paint do not work, it simply masks the problem.

The mold test is not JUST for testing for presence, its also for testing the type which is very important.

The bottom line as has been stated already is the most important thing to do is stop the source! Then very thorough cleaning and encapsulating.

Yes, there are many other things that may cause health issues like you discovered with your ducts, but don't ever underestimate the potential effects of toxic mold. Many people have died from their own homes that they consider safe when the toxic spores have lived in the walls, etc. Granted, it usually takes a very large outbreak to kill, but even small amounts can cause negative health consequences. Find out what you are dealing with and treat it with the respect it deserves.

No worries - not taking anything personal here... only indicating that Mold isn't a fraction of the issue people have made it out to be. I do agree in testing to see if it's a toxic strain - if so, by all means - fix it sooner than later. But, as far as Mold goes, it typically grows as long as there's a source of moisture. Once the moisture stops, the mold dies off (and can go airborne) - and that's kind of that. You'll see traces on the wall, but they're not reproducing and spreading. Typically, however, they aren't all that dangerous sitting behind walls sealed with multiple layers of latex paint.

As the inspector said - if you're going to touch it, be prepared to get it all out - otherwise, don't disturb it.

Either way, sounds like Miamicanes is going above and beyond to handle the problem and should sleep soundly knowing that's he's done absolutely everything possible to deal with the situation, and should never lose sleep over it again.

 

[SnyperBob]

Good luck with the cleanup. Are you going to look into taking any kind of legal action for this? Are you just going to eat the cost of the repairs?

 

[sic0048]

Are you going to look into taking any kind of legal action for this? Are you just going to eat the cost of the repairs?

I think that would be a long uphill battle with little chance of winning. Basically he would have to prove that the previous owners knew about the mold and did not disclose it. Since it is behind a sealed wall, the only way they would have known about it is during some remodeling project. Even if there is evidence of a remodeling project, you would have to prove that the mold was present before the project, and that it was in the area that the remodeling occured, that the homeowners saw the mold and simply did not disclose it. In reality you would never be able to prove all of this.

Someone mentioned the home inspectors earlier in the thread, but their disclosures are very clear that there is potential for problems in areas that they cannot see. Clearly mold located behind a wall - especially when the wall tests dry with a mosture meter - isn't going to be found by a home inspector, nor would (or should) any court hold an inspector liable for damages if they did not find the mold.