yo man there's only a little mold down there haha can you check it out
>yeah man don't worry about it
>>2876593>metal clanking in background
>>2876593Did you break a pex line
>>2876633pinhole leak in the hot water line for an unknown amount of time
>>2876644The pex salesman regularly on the board assures me this is impossible. Pex is the superior choice, almost as effective as red aerated bricks
found myself unconsciously holding my breath while skimming this thread
>>2876644>>2876644Let's just take some time to appreciate mushrooms and fungi in general please. Thank you. ...If you are interested in why it grew and what it might be up to read entangled life by Merlin sheldrake
>>2876644Bullshit. If there was any kind of ventilation, a small leak wouldn’t get it to the 90% RH the mold needs to grow. So there is no ventilation and it would have gotten moldy anyway.But either way good reminder test your water lines guys. Just keep the faucets off for an hour and check that the meter hasn’t moved
>>2876719They blocked the crawlspace vents 'so the pipes wouldn't freeze'mold doesn't need 90% humidity to grow
>>2876719Mold grows at about 58% relative humidity and above
Get a crawlspace robot to patrol it on a regular basis.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU&t=270
>>2876593Oh my god. Maybe if it's a recent growth the joists aren't completely fucked? The flooring definitely is.
>>2876593most mold is harmless. I bet you still wear three covid masks when you go outside
>>2876783only one was really fucked by the looks of it, someone else quoted the customer tens of thousands of dollars and they were going to have to move out. We'll see what comes of our process, I'm going back next week
>>2876786Would you eat a drop of the forbidden honey?
>>2876787Looks like resin coming out of the wood.This stuff is a natural fire barrier. Keep it healthy.
>>2876593speaking of this: how is humidity supposed to be treated in constructions? I've been looking for info on this and I haven't been able to find something decent.only things I found were an explanation on how hot air has a higher % of humidity (and water) than cold aire, and that humidity condensates and becomes water, and that water becomes a problem, but I could NOT find an explanation on HOW to make humidity and water go away without having hot air also go away!
>>2876862dehumidifierwhere's your moister coming from most importantly
>>2876869>where's your moister coming fromanon, there are many sources of moisture in a normal house. I'm sure you can think of many yourself: clothes dryer, bathroom, kitchen, ...also, I'm pretty sure a dehumidifier is not a final solution to the problem.there are techniques against humidity known by builders. I want to learn them.
>>2876738>>287677858 is enough for some but this one looks very very much like sarpula lacrymans which does need ~90 to grow.
>>2876872By code, in a sealed crawlspace you either use a dehumidifier or put a register from your central heat/air of a certain size down to the crawlspace. If it was an adequately vented crawlspace under normal conditions, then you wouldn't be having this problem.So it's either a vented crawlspace with a gross moisture/water problem, an inadequately vented crawlspace with regular moisture, or a sealed crawlspace without adequate moisture control in place. In any case, go down there and fix it.
>>2876872>clothes dryer, bathroom, kitchen, All of which should have vents to the outside specifically for dumping moist air...
>>2876872I do this for work, moisture is always controlled in houses or you get mold. Dryer vents to outside, bathroom should have a shower vent, kitchens shouldn't be wet as fuck all over the ground and cabinets etc when something goes wrong you'll end up with mold growth that often times won't stop once it's started
>>2876882>>2876926>>2876935you people are fucking stupid. I'm asking for a manual or whatever and you come here talking to me as if I had a problem. do you not know how to read? I'm asking for something specific, ANSWER THAT.no, currently I don't have a problem. I want to get my fucking house built and I want to learn how this shit is managed so that I can supervise the retard builder that works on it.a dehumidifier is an active element that dies when there is no electricity.vents might also dump hot air, no? how do you avoid that?you cook shit in kitchens, which usually involves... water vapor.do I really need to read the code to learn this shit?
>>2876938>do I really need to read the code to learn this shit?Correct.
>>2876938You asked;> HOW to make humidity and water go away without having hot air also go away!Then dehumidifier is the only correct answer, A/C can act as a dehumidifier too. The other, more common method of ventilation sacrifices a little bit of heat: get dry cold air from outside, heat it up so it absorbs moisture inside, then dump it outside. A bathroom fan but you don’t keep it always on, kitchen (range hood) or sometimes it is enough to just mix the air with the air from other rooms, ie you don’t need to run a fan if you use the kettle. If you want it really efficient there is HRV/MVHR but where I live those are not common in single houses, more for big residential buildings Crawl space is a different story, if you keep it at outdoor/ground temperature all the time you can just let some wind blow through it.
>>2876938The problem with your question is there's no one solution that ticks every box. Vents are absolutely industry standard, and you need at least one for code. No way around it. Some sort of hard wired dehumidifier might solve your problem otherwise, not sure.That said, most people just don't have problems with mold on joists
>>2877019ok then, I'll get to read it, hopefully>>2877040>A/C can act as a dehumidifier toocan all A/Cs do this? are the ones that do advertised as such?>get dry cold air from outside, heat it up so it absorbs moisture inside, then dump it outsidethat's interesting, I had no clue abou this. but then metallic vents make sense, I guess... they get cold and help "capture" moisture, and then shit goes away with moving hot air. simple, passive and cheap af>>2877113which is why I'm asking for materials to read, videos to watch or whatever thing might help me understand the problem and the practical solutions that existthanks guys. I gues I'll just read the code
>>2877135Yes, all air conditioners should be removing moisture from the air. They aren't advertised as such because they all do it. If something is wrong with your HVAC or AC it can pump moisture back into the space which will cause significant problems. Seriously though, there isn't always 'just going to be water in the air', these sources all have levels of mitigation
>>2876633whats wrong with pex? other than trying to remove fittings without mangling them in the process
>>2876593American (((houses))) where a mistake. >>2877193> all air conditioners should be removing moisture from the air.How do they do it? I’ve got a cold air source and I’m thinking about dyiing something to vent this into my 1st floor to cool it down a little in summer, but I’d rather avoid moist air.
>>2877263Air conditioners remove moisture from the air by passing warm, humid air over cooling coils that are colder than the dewpoint of the air. The moisture in the air condenses on the coils, removing humidity from the air.
>>2876938>dehumidifier diesThen you replace it. AC down for a few days won't cause mold to suddenly appear.
>>2876938>do you not know how to read? I'm asking for something specific, ANSWER THAT.> I want to get my fucking house built and I want to learn how this shit is managed so that I can supervise the retard builder that works on it.I already told you faggot, READ THE CODE. It's either that, or become familiar enough with plumbing, wiring/electricity, HVAC, civil engineering, material sciences, physics, and a bunch of other disciplines in order to do the same design work that informed the writing of the building codes. It's already a "for dummies" version of a much larger field of knowledge. And you're complaining about how hard it is to understand while you're calling other people stupid? Choke on a fat dick and die, dumbass.
>>2876593bet you could age some gnarly ass cheeses in that cave.
>>2876938The closer you are to ground level, the more humidity you'll have. Can you build your house a few feet from the ground?
>>2877760ok fag, I will.I'd rather read about the science behind, the fundamentals, though. "experts" usually assume shit and can make mistakes too.>>2877880>The closer you are to ground level, the more humidity you'll havewait, really? I had no idea. wouldn't that depend on the type of soil?
>>2876938>you people are fucking stupidhave to agree based on the responses here.The correct way to manage moisture for spaces at/underground is to install a continuous waterproofing layer between your structure and the ground. It's that simple.
I legitimately wonder which of this this edible and what would happen if you just cut some good looking parts and fry it in a pan
>>2876593>>2876595Bro I thought this was a shitpost.I legit thought this was a cave what the fuck
>>2878983Nah this shit was fucked up, some idiots with a turnkey mold remediation business running the shit out of state. I was the only tech in the entire state for the business driving all over the place, 4+ hours sometimes. They sent me(one guy) 3 hours over here to clean this with basically no real cleaning equipment and expected me to get it done for some low flat fee for the customer in a day that also included a regular 5 hour treatment, they also did this without ever looking at it in person and assured the customer we could do it for only a few thousand instead of the 20k+ some other companies quoted. Luckily the customer was cool about it and I killed it best I could either way with the product (fogging PAA into the space) Here's what it looked like after, we fogged it again and left it at that. Customer was going to pull up his own floor in the house to replace the joists and just wanted it dead as possible.
The PAA fog actually worked really well despite the amount of mold, extremely easy and relatively holistic way to kill it.
Shit was still fucked either way
I got called to a job like this once.customer called plumbing company 'i think there's a leak, i hear it under the floor'show up, open crawl space and DEAR LORD IT WAS OUT OF A VIDEO GAMEcan hear the spray barely at the far end where the water comes into the crawl from exterior... ground is covered in water barrier so there's essentially inches of water all throughout and massive fresh mold/fungal growthcrawled through it all to fix the leak and told em to hire a remediation company quickthen found out i locked my keys in the van at 3pm on friday and had to have the boss come unlock it :Dat least it was relatively clean besides the growth...
>>2879417Holy shit that joist is destroyed. Wish they knew how long this was going on for. At least they had real lumber down there; those engineered I-beam joists would've collapsed long before.
>>2879480They had the house for 3ish years and their homeowners insurance wouldn't cover it because the problem had been going on for an unknown amount of time lelthe leak was stopped from running about a month ago now but these floor boards were all still 50% wet on the meter
>>2879603I feel like that would be one of the times having a home inspection would be really helpful. If they had one showing the crawlspace was fine when they bought it, and they had the same insurance the whole time, I think that would make a pretty compelling case.
>>2879609home inspections are bullshit approximately half of the time it seems, are they even liable for anything they don't find? Seems like a pretty good gig if you can get into it. For this same mold remediation gig I had a customer who had just bought their house about a month before and they were having it treated kind of preemptively, the wife smelled a musty smell when the air kicked on, I treated the place and noticed the upstairs was taking longer to air out than other houses so I got to looking around at their HVAC and determined they had no return air, someone floored over the big ugly single vent that would've been in the middle of the main hallway. House must've been close to a half million, nice hundred year old house in the ozarks, customer said he'd had it inspected and even had an hvac guy come out to look over the system
>>2876593at first I thought it was a cave or some shit
>>2876674nigga scared of breathing the mushroom dust
