My good friend had a custom built house in a very nice setting, but there was one huge problem. The basement and cellar had massive water damage. The first thing she needed to do was buy a good basement sump pump for the removal of her water damage.
Not only that, but she had to replace a lot of interior woodwork, clean like a maniac, use special products to get rid of the mold and mildew that had taken over the entire basement. In fact, the whole house had that musty basement smell.
When she first asked for my help I told her that she needed to evict her tenant because he was a dead-beat renter. Of all things, he professed to be a carpenter/contractor, yet did nothing whatsoever to solve her water problem, even though they had agreed on a labor/rent exchange.
Actually, he did something: he painted the rotten 2x4 studs with a basement waterproofing paint, which did absolutely nothing. Other than that, he never fulfilled one single promise to help her, even though she reduced his rent. He thought I was against him, well I was!
Once she got the basement sump pump going, we got a dehumidifier going, removed damaged materials, cleaned everything up and then looked for the source of the problem.
As it turns out, she needed to re-grade the property so the water would flow away from the house, rather than right toward it. She was, of course, reluctant to do this because of the expense. When I pointed out that the alternative was to do nothing and that the problem would only get worse, she agreed and hired a contractor to do the work.
Next, she agreed to install some French drains around the foundation of the house, at least on the side where drainage was a problem. This is not that complicated, but it does take quite a bit of work to install properly.
The entire structure of the house was in danger of being destroyed by this stream of water. The basement sump pump was important because it gave her the time to address the cause of the problem. It did not solve the problem, not at all, yet it played a critical role in the process.
The other thing the pump did was offer some kind of assurance that any water that did manage to enter the house would quickly and efficiently be pumped out.
One reason this cleanup is so important is for the health of the family. It is not easy to get rid of mold and mildew, but if it is left unchecked, it can also make a building uninhabitable.
You can tell if you have mold or mildew very quickly just by using your nose. If you can smell that musty basement smell, you have mold spores floating around in the air.
These can make people feel quite ill, with many symptoms that resemble asthma and the flu. Sneezing, runny nose, coughing, aching joints, tiredness, shortness of breath, phlegm, and even a feeling of irritability can be attributed to the bad air from water damage.
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