Guest guest Posted May 19, 2010 Report Share Posted May 19, 2010 Hi again, Since there might be asbestos in my loose attic insulation I think I should have it tested. I found a few leads on the net but wondering if anyone here can reccommend a reliable lab. For 8 mos out of the year it is VERY wet here. The fill in my attic absorbs water from the air. I prefer to remove it but maybe shouldn't disturb it. I know attics are supposed to be ventilated but my thought is that it's getting wetter that way...not drying out. It makes better sense to me to to seal the vents until the weather is dry. EX: The part of my crawlspace with no venting is the dryest! Any thoughts on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 20, 2010 Report Share Posted May 20, 2010 Hi , Yes dehumidifiers would be great. In the attic would be best...but not with that fluff up there. I've thought on an exhaust fan too. So much to think about I don't know where to start. I do know I need a storage building before I can satart much. I'm so overwhelmed. >> > See studies done in NC, take half the subdivision, close the vents, half leave them open-closed better during the humid season, but with a de-humidifyer is the best, and with a vapor barrier on the ground. Watch though if mold grows under the vapor barrier, it could get into the house. > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 20, 2010 Report Share Posted May 20, 2010 Thank you. I argue with so many people who go with the norm & believe you have to have ventilation. See I think I have the opposite problem as you. The summer here is BONE DRY. From Oct to May or June is either rain or snow. It dried a lot here now but had 2 days of rain & the L/R ceiling is caving again. Checked the roof several times & no leaks that anyone can see (under the fluff anyway). So I really suspect that the fluff absorbs way too much humidity from the air....through the huge vents. In reading about a low-cost whole house dehumifier once, I've found out that the most humid air actually is nearer the floor (heavier than air) unless it's steam of course. The model I saw was basically a big exhaust fan that sits in your basemet. I'm thinking an exhaust fan near the attic floor would do the trick. My house also has plenty of air leaks. The summer months would have it so dry you probably couldn't detect signs of an old leak even! > > > > > > See studies done in NC, take half the subdivision, close the vents, half leave them open-closed better during the humid season, but with a de-humidifyer is the best, and with a vapor barrier on the ground. Watch though if mold grows under the vapor barrier, it could get into the house. > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 20, 2010 Report Share Posted May 20, 2010 , My comment on: " and with a vapor barrier on the ground. Watch though if mold grows under the vapor barrier, it could get into the house. " I agree mold can grow under the vapor barrier. But only if it is the wrong material and not installed correctly. If the material is technically rated as an actual barrier rather than a retarder and properly sealed around edges and seams then the mold - neither the spores nor the chemical components - can get through it. In fact, because molecules cannot get out from underneath the barrier that means air cannot get under the barrier. If air cannot get underneath then mold cannot grow. A sealed barrier of the proper material will not grow mold beneath it. An unsealed or loose barrier that is not a barrier will grow mold beneath it. In fact, it will usually grow more mold than if there were no barrier at all. Carl Grimes Healthy Habitats LLC ----- See studies done in NC, take half the subdivision, close the vents, half leave them open-closed better during the humid season, but with a de-humidifyer is the best, and with a vapor barrier on the ground. Watch though if mold grows under the vapor barrier, it could get into the house. > > Hi again, > Since there might be asbestos in my loose attic insulation I think I should have it tested. I found a few leads on the net but wondering if anyone here can reccommend a reliable lab. > For 8 mos out of the year it is VERY wet here. The fill in my attic absorbs water from the air. I prefer to remove it but maybe shouldn't disturb it. I know attics are supposed to be ventilated but my thought is that it's getting wetter that way...not drying out. It makes better sense to me to to seal the vents until the weather is dry. > EX: The part of my crawlspace with no venting is the dryest! > Any thoughts on this? > > ---------- The following section of this message contains a file attachment prepared for transmission using the Internet MIME message format. If you are using Pegasus Mail, or any other MIME-compliant system, you should be able to save it or view it from within your mailer. If you cannot, please ask your system administrator for assistance. ---- File information ----------- File: DEFAULT.BMP Date: 16 Jun 2009, 0:10 Size: 358 bytes. Type: Unknown Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 20, 2010 Report Share Posted May 20, 2010 Barb, my victorian house was built like yours, not insulated and it's on built in ventalation. when I first had the roofer come to look at my wet spots after he did the roof, he told me they were sweat spots because I had no vents. he was full of crap, as I later realized I didn't need vents. that house was 100+ years old and never a moisture problem until after he screwed up my roof. grrrr. > > > > > > See studies done in NC, take half the subdivision, close the vents, half leave them open-closed better during the humid season, but with a de-humidifyer is the best, and with a vapor barrier on the ground. Watch though if mold grows under the vapor barrier, it could get into the house. > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 25, 2010 Report Share Posted May 25, 2010 Hi Barb, I'm curious as to how your attic & roof is constructed. I'm doing a lot of reading & like you said different things work for different types of constuction... & materials. I have a metal roof that was put on top of ashphalt shingles. No soffit or anything. There is no floor in the attic just the beams. The ceilings of all the rooms is all that separates the airspace...with the damp cellulose on it. I may not insulate at all after I remove it. Everyone says I have to ( & I have to have vents & should MAKE vents in the crawlspace)... but maybe everyone is wrong again :-). > > My house has no vapor barrier and was built in 1938 and has no vents and has no mold in attic, so in the case of how older houses are built like mine, it isn't necessary. I worry about it and ask everyone that goes up there and they say my attic is in good condition. I messed things up when I put attic vents in as a recommendation of a roofer. Then I developed moldy smelling house and got sick. Could never find the stuff but closing up the vents stops the air from mixing and I feel 90% better. Have some left over health problems, but nothing like I did. Could hardly hold my head up so tired all the time. Had a terrible rash I couldn't get rid of, which is gone since insulation was getting taken up in the extra air movement created by these vents. These codes are written for new buildings, and shouldn't be assumed to work with old building styles. Alot of people are probably sick because of this and don't know it. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 25, 2010 Report Share Posted May 25, 2010 Hi research, I am getting less perplexed about why mold happens reading articles from buildingscience.com. I've had several Ah ha moments. In a nutshell, the house it going to get wet so there has to be a way for it to dry. Insulation, vapor barriers & air space all play a role & pairing the right materials with each other for everey layer. I love their Very Cold Climate House Design. Explains the fundamentals of water management. I feel it necessary to state NFI because I keep plugging them. > > This thread has turned out very interesting. > > All the talk about proper vapor protection reminds me of my experiences eating high meat. > > If raw meat is allowed to get plenty of fresh air, and the flies are kept off it, and it does not get too hot, as it ages, it turns in to an intoxicating super-food, but, if the same raw meat is kept sealed in an air-tight container, anarobic bacteria form, which make the meat poisonous and smell like crap. > > Previous to modern times, houses did not have insulation, so plenty of fresh air was constantly circulating, and as long as the roof was kept up, things were fine. A big fire was constantly kept going, which made the inside-air very dry. > > Today, modern homes have a lot of insulation, little fresh air, and it's not as healthy. In the summer, the house air is maintained with A/C, which makes the air dry, but the attics are often vented. > > In my current house, the attic is vented very well, but it's humid outside, and when water seaped through the flashing and rotted out the roofing sheet, the mold get very bad when it rained, but dried out in a week. This wood had constant fresh air on one-side, but was semi-permeable on the other, and was wet, but so was my camper. Perhaps the difference being the ammount of time the roof leaked. Perhaps mold becomes much worse as the wood-rot stays moist longer. > > In my camper, the rain leaked in it's roof, and there was no bad mold problem. There were similar conditions w/ both, except for, perhaps building materials, location and length of time. > > The camper had litle insulation. This house has a lot of insulation. Fred's trailer had good insultation and it got very bad mold. The moldy victorian house had terrible insulation and it's mold was very bad (roof leak). The Nye Way cabin had good insulation, and had terrible mold (roof leak). Then, the new house I stayed in had no mold whatsoever, no roof leaks, a small stream of water flowing along-side it, on a dry, vapor-barriared crawl-space, well insulated, but never any leaks. Then the Carrboro house was newer, no leaks, great insulation and no mold, except for the nasty carpets, which I covered up w/ tarp (when eventually finished out-gassing). Then, the Berkshire manor west apartment had window sills that collected moisture and were spongy, and it's bathrooms had no windows, and it's fan was woefully inadequate to remove moisture from a nice hot bath, like the type of bath that relieves mold-induced headaches. > > Now there's a dilema. What do you do when only a nice HOT bath will relieve you of your mold-induced headaches, and the moisture from the bath only feeds the mold and makes it worse? What idiot decided to design an apartment so that the bathrooms have no windows above the baths, and the vents do not addequately ventilate the bath-tub steam? > > Now there's my mom's house, where there was a roof leak that was repaired. A section of rotted board was removed and replaced, however, there's still another section of roofing that is still rotted, but no new moisture will probably get to it, but I do not feel 100% better about this new setup, and we will see how it all handles the next rain. This house has super-attic ventalation. It's almost always on. It has a roof leak near the chimney flashing, plenty of insulation on the floor of the attic, and I do not know about a moisture barrier. The hosue is directly on cement on the ground. Do I not know about a moisture barrier, but probably not. > > insulation, breathing crawl-space, leaks, Bath-room window, dry-wall, carpeting, near water-body, age of house. > > The biggest determinator I can find, here, from my personal experience is a source of moisture, and how long that moisture has been working on that rotting wood. > > I have not experienced any problems with relative humidity, except for the times when I created a lot of steam, like bathing or cooking too much rice, and not having proper window-ventilation, or when the single-paned windows in the BMW apartment windows had so much moisture collect on their panes and run down to rot the sill. Those were major mold problems too. > > Just found this: > " We remediated a 1900's colonial last summer.Wide planked hardwood floors with mushrooms growing between the slats.Floors were removed and mold found throughout subfloor. > > We find " fruiting bodies " coming out of brick quite frequently. " > > When I think about all my different scenarios, I conclude that the safer buildings were the newer ones that had no leaks whatsoever, or, the old camper, & single-wides, who's leaks were immediately fixed as they came up. > > The old houses who's leaks were tarred over, allowed to continue unfixed, painted over or simply concealed some-way had the worst mold problems. Inadequately vented bathrooms were a bad problem too. This is my experience. Also, carpeting makes things worse. Linoleum is OK. > > " Linoleum is also the perfect choice for the person looking for an environmentally-friendly material. Made of linseed oil, wood flour, and cork powder, linoleum doesn't emit any gasses and is biodegradable, making it one of the greenest flooring options currently available. Linoleum is also hypoallergenic, naturally resistant to bacteria, and antistatic, which means it repels dust and pollen. For people with asthma or allergies, linoleum is a perfect flooring choice. Linoleum is better suited for the foyer area or laundry room, as it is almost 100 percent waterproof and can be cleaned by damp mopping alone. " > > Linoleum is impervious to water and costs $6/sq foot. > Vinyl is not nearly as good w/ water & costs $0.88/sq foot. > > Old trailers probably used good old linoleum as a base for the floor and built all cabinets, walls... on top of it, and then there's always a crawl-space under a trailer, and it's usually vented. > > They are almost always windows near the bathroom. > > The biggest flaw w/ old trailors is shoddy plubing work, and roof maintenance. If the plumbing is solid, and the roof is kept up, and the previous owners did not use it as a meth-house, or smoke crack, or cigarettes in it, then such a building could be perfect. > > I onced rented an old single-wide that had no mold, but I could detect toxins in the walls. I found a crack-pipe hidden in the bathroom eventually and later found out that it was previously occupied by a stripper. Often, desperate people will go for the cheapest thing available, which may be an old trailor, and sometimes, desperate people are desperate, because they spend all their good money of drugs & ciggarettes, and then infiltrate the walls and building materials with toxins. > > The problem w/ new houses is that either you have to be wealthy, which health-sensitive people are often NOT, or, you have to have room-mates, and people today, at least in this country, are just not as friendly and selfless as they used to be. We are living in an age of malignant narcissism. I've had roomies that treated me with respect, were truthful and kind. I've had bad ones too. Landlords cover the range too, but they are mostly crooks, from my experience. Beware the landlord's lean. Do they walk, talk, and stand crooked? I've had one who's hands were even crooked, and they all turned out to be crooks. One land-lord, Ted Wheeler, stood upright, owned a welding business, and had bright, beautiful eyes and he turned out to be a great landlord. > > Old country doctors teach that fresh air is an important part of getting and staying healthy, so what is one to do when it's freezing outside and the air is too cold to breath without the cold air making one sick, or bursting the pipes? > > I'd like to come up with plans for a little house, for chemical/mold sensitive people, that would be a survival-mode pod, not something to bring your guests to for tea, but something the body can recuperate in for 8 hours a night, while the body sleeps, with a perfectly pristine, immaculate environment, with fresh HEPA filtered, heated, moisture-controlled air that slowly circulates around the body. This sleeping-chamber can be vented from outside, far above the roof. This coffin-like space can be air-tight, except for it's ventilation system, which gets fresh air from the most pristine source possible. This chamber could be kept in a deep dug in pit, underground, and cov ered in such a way that most EM radiation is blocked out, including cancer-towers, or even that from nuclear fall-out. OK, so now I'm talking about the perfect fall-out shelter with a special sleeping-chamber, perhaps something anyone can build with proper plans. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 25, 2010 Report Share Posted May 25, 2010 , Building Science Corp is one of the 2 or 3 best building science companies in the country. Joe Lstiburek is a mentor to many of us and is widely sought for his expertise when developing policy. You are getting the best info available in my opinion. Keep up the good work. Carl Grimes Healthy Habitats LLC (fm my Blackberry) [] Re: Attic insulation Hi research, I am getting less perplexed about why mold happens reading articles from buildingscience.com. I've had several Ah ha moments. In a nutshell, the house it going to get wet so there has to be a way for it to dry. Insulation, vapor barriers & air space all play a role & pairing the right materials with each other for everey layer. I love their Very Cold Climate House Design. Explains the fundamentals of water management. I feel it necessary to state NFI because I keep plugging them. > > This thread has turned out very interesting. > > All the talk about proper vapor protection reminds me of my experiences eating high meat. > > If raw meat is allowed to get plenty of fresh air, and the flies are kept off it, and it does not get too hot, as it ages, it turns in to an intoxicating super-food, but, if the same raw meat is kept sealed in an air-tight container, anarobic bacteria form, which make the meat poisonous and smell like crap. > > Previous to modern times, houses did not have insulation, so plenty of fresh air was constantly circulating, and as long as the roof was kept up, things were fine. A big fire was constantly kept going, which made the inside-air very dry. > > Today, modern homes have a lot of insulation, little fresh air, and it's not as healthy. In the summer, the house air is maintained with A/C, which makes the air dry, but the attics are often vented. > > In my current house, the attic is vented very well, but it's humid outside, and when water seaped through the flashing and rotted out the roofing sheet, the mold get very bad when it rained, but dried out in a week. This wood had constant fresh air on one-side, but was semi-permeable on the other, and was wet, but so was my camper. Perhaps the difference being the ammount of time the roof leaked. Perhaps mold becomes much worse as the wood-rot stays moist longer. > > In my camper, the rain leaked in it's roof, and there was no bad mold problem. There were similar conditions w/ both, except for, perhaps building materials, location and length of time. > > The camper had litle insulation. This house has a lot of insulation. Fred's trailer had good insultation and it got very bad mold. The moldy victorian house had terrible insulation and it's mold was very bad (roof leak). The Nye Way cabin had good insulation, and had terrible mold (roof leak). Then, the new house I stayed in had no mold whatsoever, no roof leaks, a small stream of water flowing along-side it, on a dry, vapor-barriared crawl-space, well insulated, but never any leaks. Then the Carrboro house was newer, no leaks, great insulation and no mold, except for the nasty carpets, which I covered up w/ tarp (when eventually finished out-gassing). Then, the Berkshire manor west apartment had window sills that collected moisture and were spongy, and it's bathrooms had no windows, and it's fan was woefully inadequate to remove moisture from a nice hot bath, like the type of bath that relieves mold-induced headaches. > > Now there's a dilema. What do you do when only a nice HOT bath will relieve you of your mold-induced headaches, and the moisture from the bath only feeds the mold and makes it worse? What idiot decided to design an apartment so that the bathrooms have no windows above the baths, and the vents do not addequately ventilate the bath-tub steam? > > Now there's my mom's house, where there was a roof leak that was repaired. A section of rotted board was removed and replaced, however, there's still another section of roofing that is still rotted, but no new moisture will probably get to it, but I do not feel 100% better about this new setup, and we will see how it all handles the next rain. This house has super-attic ventalation. It's almost always on. It has a roof leak near the chimney flashing, plenty of insulation on the floor of the attic, and I do not know about a moisture barrier. The hosue is directly on cement on the ground. Do I not know about a moisture barrier, but probably not. > > insulation, breathing crawl-space, leaks, Bath-room window, dry-wall, carpeting, near water-body, age of house. > > The biggest determinator I can find, here, from my personal experience is a source of moisture, and how long that moisture has been working on that rotting wood. > > I have not experienced any problems with relative humidity, except for the times when I created a lot of steam, like bathing or cooking too much rice, and not having proper window-ventilation, or when the single-paned windows in the BMW apartment windows had so much moisture collect on their panes and run down to rot the sill. Those were major mold problems too. > > Just found this: > " We remediated a 1900's colonial last summer.Wide planked hardwood floors with mushrooms growing between the slats.Floors were removed and mold found throughout subfloor. > > We find " fruiting bodies " coming out of brick quite frequently. " > > When I think about all my different scenarios, I conclude that the safer buildings were the newer ones that had no leaks whatsoever, or, the old camper, & single-wides, who's leaks were immediately fixed as they came up. > > The old houses who's leaks were tarred over, allowed to continue unfixed, painted over or simply concealed some-way had the worst mold problems. Inadequately vented bathrooms were a bad problem too. This is my experience. Also, carpeting makes things worse. Linoleum is OK. > > " Linoleum is also the perfect choice for the person looking for an environmentally-friendly material. Made of linseed oil, wood flour, and cork powder, linoleum doesn't emit any gasses and is biodegradable, making it one of the greenest flooring options currently available. Linoleum is also hypoallergenic, naturally resistant to bacteria, and antistatic, which means it repels dust and pollen. For people with asthma or allergies, linoleum is a perfect flooring choice. Linoleum is better suited for the foyer area or laundry room, as it is almost 100 percent waterproof and can be cleaned by damp mopping alone. " > > Linoleum is impervious to water and costs $6/sq foot. > Vinyl is not nearly as good w/ water & costs $0.88/sq foot. > > Old trailers probably used good old linoleum as a base for the floor and built all cabinets, walls... on top of it, and then there's always a crawl-space under a trailer, and it's usually vented. > > They are almost always windows near the bathroom. > > The biggest flaw w/ old trailors is shoddy plubing work, and roof maintenance. If the plumbing is solid, and the roof is kept up, and the previous owners did not use it as a meth-house, or smoke crack, or cigarettes in it, then such a building could be perfect. > > I onced rented an old single-wide that had no mold, but I could detect toxins in the walls. I found a crack-pipe hidden in the bathroom eventually and later found out that it was previously occupied by a stripper. Often, desperate people will go for the cheapest thing available, which may be an old trailor, and sometimes, desperate people are desperate, because they spend all their good money of drugs & ciggarettes, and then infiltrate the walls and building materials with toxins. > > The problem w/ new houses is that either you have to be wealthy, which health-sensitive people are often NOT, or, you have to have room-mates, and people today, at least in this country, are just not as friendly and selfless as they used to be. We are living in an age of malignant narcissism. I've had roomies that treated me with respect, were truthful and kind. I've had bad ones too. Landlords cover the range too, but they are mostly crooks, from my experience. Beware the landlord's lean. Do they walk, talk, and stand crooked? I've had one who's hands were even crooked, and they all turned out to be crooks. One land-lord, Ted Wheeler, stood upright, owned a welding business, and had bright, beautiful eyes and he turned out to be a great landlord. > > Old country doctors teach that fresh air is an important part of getting and staying healthy, so what is one to do when it's freezing outside and the air is too cold to breath without the cold air making one sick, or bursting the pipes? > > I'd like to come up with plans for a little house, for chemical/mold sensitive people, that would be a survival-mode pod, not something to bring your guests to for tea, but something the body can recuperate in for 8 hours a night, while the body sleeps, with a perfectly pristine, immaculate environment, with fresh HEPA filtered, heated, moisture-controlled air that slowly circulates around the body. This sleeping-chamber can be vented from outside, far above the roof. This coffin-like space can be air-tight, except for it's ventilation system, which gets fresh air from the most pristine source possible. This chamber could be kept in a deep dug in pit, underground, and cov ered in such a way that most EM radiation is blocked out, including cancer-towers, or even that from nuclear fall-out. OK, so now I'm talking about the perfect fall-out shelter with a special sleeping-chamber, perhaps something anyone can build with proper plans. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 26, 2010 Report Share Posted May 26, 2010 The wood floors need refinishing here but I haven't been able to do it yet. Some ideas I had for the furniture, was take the first floor furniture up to the second floor and some in the basement and do the first floor. Do the second floor another time and move furniture in the opposite direction. Another possibility is to put it in a POD on the street, if you can fit it in there. You can leave the POD there the few days work is being done if city permits it, or POD people will tow it off and bring it back. > > The floors will be refinished once I figure out where to empty the house into. It seems that building firewood storage in essential & that will temorarily house things while I overhaul the house. > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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