Mold Remediation... My Quandry

[cshahar]

Hi Everyone:

I moved into this house 2.5 years ago. It had a lot of hidden problems, one of which was mold in the basement. The basement has suffered from a humidity problem I would guess since the house was constructed (1949). One problem is groundwater seeping through the floor and the other is the lack of insulation of the foundation walls. A lab test showed that there are mold spores of the pen-asp group in the air. Anyways, I am about to have an interior French Drain installed, but the floors and internal walls need to be stripped. I am quite sure there is mold behind the walls, and/or below the floors. My quandary is that I can have my renovator guy come in strip the walls and floor and cart the debris to a bin outside; or I can have a professional remediation company come in and do the same but much more carefully sealing the space and scrubbing, hepa vacuuming and disinfecting the concrete walls and floor and whatever is left of internal walls. Normally this decision would be a no-brainier, but I am going to be paying $1,000 for the first option and $5,500 for the second. Since the bill for my French Drain and subsequent reconstruction and air dehumidifier-purifier will be hefty I am hesitating to pay the larger amount. Please let me know your thoughts!

Thanks,

-Charles

 

[bud16415]

First off I’m not an expert on any of this just a DIY guy like you. If it were mine I would save the money and have the contractor do the demo and do what ever drainage and conditioning needs to be done first. My thoughts are once you take care of the water problem the mold problem will go away or get a lot better. There are mold spores everyplace on earth and they will grow or not grow provided conditions.


Once all the heavy work is done you may even be able to do the final part of the cleanup yourself.

 

[David Murry]

If the mold contamination is not too difficult to remove and be disinfected easy enough you can have the renovation company do the work. If it's really bad and the contamination is deep then you might want help from a pro at least for the decontamination.

 

[nealtw]

Your contractor can cut some samples out of the walls and then decide whether he is safe taking the job on, you are not the pro that should be making that decision. Seal the door to up stairs for the duration of the clean up. We have always tried to remove 4 ft of drywall and 2 ft off the studs, If the wall will hang there you have saved some money.