Hi all, i thought i would share my moldy laundry room story. The room has a washer, electric dryer and an open staircase to the basement and pull down stairs to the attic. not much else. Never realized humidity levels were through the roof. It is an unconditioned room meaning no heat, ac or dehumidifier. I was having a problem with condensation on the walls, ceiling and windows. Then it happened, and fairly quickly. mold spots all over the room. first i had to get rid of the ceiling popcorn paint. luckily the mold was only on the popcorn for the ceiling. then the walls came down, some studs replaced, window sill and all window wood replaced. i coated the room and fogged with concrobium - a mold abatement product. rebuilt the walls and I just got new insulation up tonight. the room now contains a dehumidifier and there has been no condensation or moisture anywhere. tough lesson learned. It's finally ready to put up greenboard, and i hope my progress pictures show up nice here. in some of the pics, the studs are covered with zinsser mold killing paint, hopefully for good measure, but the dehumidifier is staying on in that room from now on. I forgot to take pics of the concrobium fogging which is a shame because that was the coolest part.
i forgot to add the problem was mostly the ceiling popcorn and the 2 outside walls, i did not tear the whole room apart and the ceiling is saveable and the inside walls are too. if anyone spots anything i did wrong please let me know before i go ahead and put up the greenboard. humidity is holding at 29-32% now with the dehumidifier
Wow, what a job, you made it sound easy. Glad you spotted it and fixed it. And yes, your pictures show the job well
It is/was far from easy. Wearing a respirator for that many hours itself is tough on you. i believe all i have left is the drywall, sanding, taping, more sanding then painting twice with the zinsser. then some new trimwork and i should be all set. i also want to add a 20 amp circuit for the danby dehumidifier and a dedicated drain versus the garden hose that goes all the way across the basement into the sump pit. luckily so far nobody has said OMG your project is gonna be a disaster. lol.
im concerned about my taping skills which are just one step up from weak. however i plan on watching a bunch of how to's and using this to hone them. im not very concerned with the laundry room looking "pristine". as you can see, many years ago we painted it with "goof" paint from depot - which explains all the funky colors. however, it must be mold-free. this time its zinsser white anti mold paint all the way around. If there are some visible taping snafu's i wont cry about it
You might consider putting in a bathroom fan to ventilate the room. Dehumidifiers are okay, but my experience is that they heat up the area. That being said, I haven't run a dehumidifier for probably 15-20 years (and I have that one in my basement just in case), so they have probably come a long way and others can jump in to tell me how wrong I am
sanding drywall mud. I hate it. It's easier to put a few light coats of mud on for less sanding than 1 thick coat that takes days to dry. I am no master but somehow get sucked into helping friends and family do it. 1st 2 coats I mix buy hand in my pan. Durabond 90 or 45. I have been cheating and using premix easy sand for the top coat. I suck at it but it turns out good. Lots of bad words escape my mouth. I wish you luck.
Important thing with taping is to remember it’s not the finished product. I always wet the tape prior to sticking to a bedded joint. Might be helpful to have a spray bottle to spritz the bedded joint. Don’t over work the material and invest in several widths of mud knifes for finishing the joints
I'm curious too about the cause of the mold. A drop down stairway can leak cold air in to a warm room. I've seen bad dryer venting installs too. It is too bad that you had to go through that much work.
My very first thought was a leaky dryer vent or none at all. My years in hvac I have seen several times where there was no vent at all.
I have all the sized of mud knives and today i bought a mud pan. I believe the cause was a birds nest in the dryer vent that went undetected, however that was not the only cause. It is a completely unheated unconditioned room in the winter and summer. if cold air leaked from the attic it would be the same temp as the cold air in the room. The moisture comes from the basement, which has an open stairwell up to the laundry room. since the basement is underground, i believe it stays a tad warmer than unheated upstairs. thus condensation. I thought about a vent van, even one on a humidistat, which i can definitely do, but i went with the dehumidifier to warm up the room as well. Back story is this probably happened in may when i was sick for a few months and didnt notice much, such as the dryer vent plugged. I'm all better now and making a lot of progress. Heres some pics of today's events! the last pic is the birds nest. the flapper on the dryer vent was stuck open. I fixed the whole thing and cleaned it good with a brush, leaf blower trick and new flapper.
by the way the new greenboard (grey in the pic for some crazy reason) is raised 1/2" off the concrete stool, which it wasnt before. I also changed out the double foil faced insulation to single faced kraft r15 batts. i intend to also seal the concrete stool under the wall with a good sealer
i do need to make something to air seal the pull down attic stairs but im not ready for that yet, plus i have no idea what it will be. possible a gasket type material around the edges
thats actually a really good idea, i may go with that. my first thought was that foam you put around air conditioners but it seemed kind of sketchy
I find that foam (AC type) is open celled so it breathes and flimsy. Dads pull down stairs sealed great for long time..
