If It Happened Once, It Can Happen Again.
If it happened once, it can happen again. You may not have had a sump pump in your basement or crawl space before Florence rocked the east coast, and maybe you never thought you would need it but, that has changed. Water levels rose and leaked into your crawl space and basement saturating it and the air is filled with moisture. With high humidity, warm temperatures, and moisture flooding your crawl space and basement, it’s the perfect conditions for mold to grow and thrive in your home.
Air gets pulled into your home through the lower levels and released through your attic. This means the air you are breathing in your home is coming from your crawl space or basement, it’s just under your feet and has the perfect conditions for mold to grow. Do you want to be breathing mold/mildew and musty odors? We didn’t think so.
A musty, moldy/mildew crawl space or basement is just going to keep happening. Storms hit, and the weather gets warm mold grows on wood joists and the paper backing on your fiberglass insulation. On the joists, mold can cause wood rot, and the fiberglass insulation that hasn’t fallen from between the joists from gravity and being oversaturated is just holding moisture against your floor joists promoting mold growth and wood rot. Even when temperatures drop, and the mold becomes dormant, it flakes and becomes airborne. Now, air containing flaked off mold and mildew is entering your home and you and your family are breathing it in.
In the winter, rainwater and melting snow seeps in. Even if mold isn’t growing in winter months, the pressure of the water against your home’s foundation can cause some serious problems. Water can seep in through cracks, and porous brick and cinder blocks, or up through the ground or basement slab. Consider walking into your basement in the middle of winter and all the melted snow has turned into a cold wading pool on your basement floor, maybe even affecting your hot water heater or furnace.
What happens in the summer months, can happen in the winter months and affect your home year-round.
