There has been a persistent, nasty smell of mildew in the house this week. Its DRIVING ME CRAZY! I have a sensitive sense of smell, and it’s unbearable to smell the mildew. I’m ready to claw the walls out.
I dealt with this last year, when we completely gutted and renovated the living room. But now the smell is back… and I can’t locate where it is coming from. I strongly suspect it may be an ice dam somewhere.
I wrote about ice dams here, last year. Ice dams are formed on the roof of a house, when melting water builds up beneath a blockage of ice. They are very common here in Northeast, where we might have a daytime temperature of 40 degrees F (melting the ice enough to get the water flowing) and then a night time drop to 10 degrees (causing a freeze). This freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw cycle wreaks havoc on the roof, particularly on the gabled and steep-roofed areas of our homes. Older homes are especially susceptible, because they were built before insulation and before the standardized sealing of air leaks and soffits. And then there is my house, which is like Swiss cheese.
Moreover, the knuckleheads who insulated the attic here completely filled in the soffits with dusty fiberglass cellulose, sealing off the air flow and creating a tropical rainforest in the attic. It would have been better if they never insulated at all, than to have insulated incorrectly. Because now we are stuck with a ton of problems and a sticky, gooey, cellulose insulation cleanup, too. *sigh*
So there’s moisture somewhere in the walls again. For all I know, we could have ice dams leaking into all the corners of the walls! Gah! I have the windows wide open today (its 15 degrees outside) to air the house out. We’re going to have to gear up with our icebreaker merinos and shovels, and get the ice off the roof today, too. I don’t know what else to do, besides claw down the walls…
In the Bible, in the Old Testament, it says to rip a house down if mildew is found, and rebuild from scratch. I am THIS CLOSE right now. Somedays I look at this place and wonder how on earth I’m going to get it all done, and still be sane (and not go bankrupt!) at the same time. GRRRRRR!
There’s a great website called InspectAPedia if you want to learn more about ice dams and how to treat/prevent them. The site also has other helpful articles, too.
Photos from Frugal Yankee.
February 25, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Ripping the house down is a bit extreme!! Keep going – it will be worth it in the end!
February 26, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Hey Mark!
Ripping down a house is pretty extreme… but persistent mold and mildew has health repercussions, so I can fully understand why it is advisable to “start from scratch” with such cases. I’ve seen videos of hurricane victims– their houses LOADED with insidious black mold– and they simply repair the drywall. UGH! I could never live with that, knowing that mold spores are lurking.
This house is pretty old and it’s in terrible shape. We’ve had offers from folks who want to buy the property (but they would tear the house down). I’m still hoping we can renovate the place, but as I get older and the house gets older… I just don’t know if it’s worth it.
February 26, 2009 at 10:41 pm
We’re in the same boat, Mrs. M. Not with ice and mold, (that I know of!) but with repairs and maintenance that need to be done that I’m just not physically capable of anymore. I would love to sell our house – it’s huge and old (1860′s) and I’m tired of being a slave to it. It eats all our time and money.
But my hubbie is a packrat and needs to get rid of some “stuff” so we can downsize – and oh, how he hates to get rid of “stuff!”
March 5, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Ha, I’d never heard of ice dams! Well but then we don’t get that much snow so such knowledge is not necessary. But when I lived in London we had mold everywhere from all the rain and humidity this city gets, so I hear ya. Good luck with your renovation project!