outside wall heavily water damaged, how to dry?

scottlindner

Trying to keep it quick and simple. I just figured out the source of a mold smell from our sinks in our master bathroom. The neighbor's irrigation was soaking our outside wall. It is made of stucco. We tore into the walls to see if it was plumbing. From the outside you can see the stucco is soaked. From the inside of the walls you can feel the tar paper is wet and the plywood is warped due to being soaked. I want to rent the equipment to dry out the wall. I understand there is a fan of sorts, a heater, and a dehumidifier. But I haven't had much luck finding these things that are tailored to drying out a wall because those names are common to many appliances. Does anyone know the exact names of this equipment, where I could rent them, and if there is anything else I should be thinking about that you'd like to add?

Cheers,
Scott

Darylh

It would be to your best interest to remove the damaged area and redo. But if thats not a option any Construction heater,orbital fan, dehumidifier should work.
Hope this helps

AaronB

Is it stucco or EIFS?

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scottlindner

I believe it is stucco. What is EIFS?

I've had three damage recovery specialists to prepare bids. One was completely sleezy and I won't do business with them. The other two said it appears there is no structural damage, but a ton of moisture and mold to deal with. The first bid was outrageous at $4,200. Maybe this is completely normal. My neighbors have stated they will pay whatever the cost is, but I'm not sure they had this sort of cost in mind when they made that statement. I don't want to stick it to them, but there's been a history of previous owners of my home and these neighbors with moisture along this wall so maybe I will push for them to pay all costs. I haven't decided yet. I dont' want to be a prick, but the neighbors have been asked in the past about the moisture along this wall and took a hard stance with the previous owners on it. So maybe I won't try too hard to alleviate some of the financial burden on them by doing some of the work myself.

Teetorbilt

Try to look at this rationally.

Your neighbors damaged your house just as surely as driving their SUV through the wall! It took longer and wasn't as violent but the damage is there just the same.

I would be very surprised if there is no structural damage. Anything this wet over a period of time has to have compromised more than one component. You can start with fasteners. $4,200.00 sounds kind of on the cheap side and it will always look like a repair unless you have the entire side of the house re-stuccoed. I have never seen a decent 'blend-in' job.

Time to start loading the guns. I would hunt down previous owners and get affidavits from them, they can be supoenaed if it gets that far. Same with any other neighbors. Take pics of the offending sprinkler(s). Present a COPY of the package to the offenders and explain that they can play ball or throw your attorney's fees and court costs on to the bottom line.

I'll bet next time they'll fix their sprinklers!

scottlindner

I know. That's exactly how I'm trying to convince myself to see this. I think the thing is, I try real hard to be a good neighbor. Even if it's tough. Most people would rather have their HOA, politicians, or a lawyer deal with this sort of problem. I don't want to be like that, and also don't want to stick them hard. I know they didn't try to do this, but in hind sight they didn't seem to care much. When we first moved in, I noticed that a few of our own sprinklers needed to be moved to point away from our other neighbor's home. The offending neighbors have their sprinklers pointed directly at our home, not away.


You might be right. I'm not an expert and this is precisely why we're consulting damage recovery specialists. At first I thought I'd just dry out the wall and kill off the mold. That's why I first posted. Then I started thinking about it more rationally and realized that by ignoring any real problems I could be assuming a more serious problem down the road.


The $4200 is just to dry it out, remove materials, and kill off the mold. It doesn't include any repairs to the structure, hanging new drywall, replacing insulation, etc. The second contractor today looked at it and said, "You have a real problem. This is going to be very expensive". I believe him. I'm starting to realize there is a lot of work involved.


The thing is, I learned about the previous owners and this issue from our neighbors that soaked the house. It's ironic that they set themselves up in a way. They posed it as the previous owners being crazy and unreasonable. I think the previous owners made the mistake of trying to solve the problem themselves and not consulting professionals. When we first moved in our neighbors said the previous owners hacked down some of their plants because they were causing moisture problems. The plants that were hacked are in the very same place. That wasn't a cool move on behalf of the previous owners, but it should have sent a signal to our neighbors that maybe there was something legit when they first mentioned there was moisture and took a hard stance and told them they were crazy. Now they'll most likely be paying for it and probably a lot more than they would have back then.


The thing is, there actually isn't anything wrong with the sprinklers. It never occured to them that pointing a sprinkler directly at someone's house from only two feet away could be a bad thing over a long time. Even when I asked them to turn on their sprinklers to see if it could be the problem they denied it was the source of the water even when they noted the water glistening on the side of the house themselves.

Anyway... I'm not trying too much to complain about my neighbors even though I just did. My stance has been changing on how to handle the situation. Your statement that the neighbors should pay for the problem only helps my resolve on it. So I guess this thread is no longer appropriate for a DIY forum. I will post back how everything goes, but I probably won't be doing any of the work myself. Even though I'm a huge DIY person.

Actually, I do have a question. Since mold is going to be a problem until it's resolved, I'd like to know if anyone knows of a good carpet cleaning product that will kill any mold in the carpet. Since I've been on the mold hunt, I noticed one of our entry ways probably leaks a bit when it rains. There's a small patch of mold in the carpet that I always thought was simply dirt. I'd like to kill it after fixing the doorway.

Thanks for your time posting. I appreciate it.

Cheers,
Scott