Newaryon

The recent weather in NY has caused me some water damage. Trying to decide what needs to be done.

The house is a 1960's split level. The damage is in the foyer and half bath that is at ground level. Some water seemed to be pooling up from below the floor and seeping in around the floor tiles there.

At first I wasn't sure where it was coming from. I was worried there might be a crack in the foundation, or that it was coming in under the sliding door to the back yard.

Right next to this area is a part of the house that includes a basement. The basement has a sump pump. The first thing I did was to get a plumber to examine the pipes and pump and he found a problem there. It seems likely that the pump was not operating properly and some water was spraying out of the pipes inside the house, which then soaked the basement wall and the ceiling and therefore the floor above. I fixed this and the leaking has stopped, but that area was drenched and I can see and smell mold.

What are the steps I need to take to repair this type of a problem? I am thinking I probably need to tear up that floor and completely redo that bathroom.

BridgeMan

First thing to do is call your homeowners insurance agent. Many policies don't cover groundwater seepage, but they will pay for damage caused by plumbing leaks. Technically speaking, your sump pump and outfall are classified as plumbing features (a plumber made the repairs, yes?), and therefore could be (should be) covered. I received a very nice check from State Farm when one of my pipes burst and did several thousand dollars' worth of damage.

Let us know if your agent doesn't agree, and we'll give you some suggestions on where to start making things right yourself.

joecaption

I'd also call an exterminator. They can spray a boron soloution to kill that mold.
Is this a crawl space? There should be a layer of 6 mil. plactic down on the ground under the whole house.

isola96

Can you provide us picture of the affected era(s)?.. Maybe we can have a better idea if your insurance doesn't work out.

Sent from my iPhone iOS5

Newaryon

Okay I attached this rough sketch I drew of the area. The gray area is the basement. The tan area is a ground level foyer that is higher than the basement and to the side. The water damaged area in green includes the half bath and part of the foyer by a sliding door to the backyard.

I am pretty sure now it was the malfunctioning sump pump which caused the problem. Looks like the pipes that empty the sump were getting clogged or overflowing and the water exploded up and to the right, drenching the floor of the foyer and bathroom on the level above.

Now that the sump pump was replaced, we haven't gotten any new leaking and the floor is slowly drying out.

The wall of that bathroom is totally rotten and the advice I have gotten is to tear it all out and rebuild with new drywall. I can see some mold on the beams in that area. Some kind of mold-killing treatment sounds like a good idea. One company said I needed a dehumidifier in the basement to get moisture out of the air down there.

The floor is old asbestos tile and while it isn't rotting from the wet surely getting it replaced with some new mold moisture-resistant product should be part of the program.

Insurance company said to get them estimates... I do think it will turn out some part of this will be covered.

Newaryon

Okay here are some pictures I took back when all of this started after Tropical Storm Irene passed through. This has all dried up now and the smell has pretty much gone away.

I see some mold in the basement on wood on that wall near the sump pump but it doesn't look too bad. I am afraid of what might be inside the walls. From the bathroom I can see light in the basement where the drywall is completely rotted through.

isola96

How bad is the mold really?... The green in the picture is water damage or mold
So your saying totally new bathroom which I can understand
Rip it all out then let it air out with dehumitifirer and maybe air recycling machine.

Sent from my iPhone iOS5

SnellExperts

You don't need to just kill the mold. Dead mold spores can still and will cause allergic reactions just like the living stuff. Killing it isn't enough to remove the problem. If its topical mold then you need to obviously clean it off, but if its a deeper issue, some of the affected sections may need to be replaced. I would call a mold inspector to give you more accurate feed back and to let you know how serious the issue is, and what it will take to clean it up.

__________________
[URL=http://www.snellexperts.com]Mold Inspection[/URL]
[URL=http://www.executiverestoration.com]Mold Inspection Charlotte NC[/URL]

isola96

If the wall in the bathroom is rotted out then most of the wood is no good if not all the wood that holds the bathroom together will need to be done. Mold is no joke it's one thing to just replace x amount of sheet rock but wood?....

Sent from my iPhone iOS5

joecaption

Looks like someone used a bunch of patched together differant types of pipes to run that sump pump and also steped it down from the port size on the output side of the pump. It should have been run with all the same size pipe from pump to outside with just a check valve in line to stop back flow.
How far from the foundation is the piping run outside from the foundation?
If it's being dump just outside the foundation it's going to leak right back in.
That whole wall and floor needs to come out in that bathroom, all the mold killed.
How far is it from a soild surface IE: deck, stoop, step) from that door threshold? It needs to be a min. of 4" below it or water will get in under that door and take out the flooring, oh I see it already has. I'd be that door also was not set in a sill pan to stop water from getting in.