wet drywall, wet insulation, and more

brianxmurray

Initial thought is window leak.. first time encounter with a mold issue. Any advice on what to do first?

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jklingel

first, you need to dig in more and fing the source, imo. i would not do anything until i was sure. do you have a vapor barrier and run air conditioning? any pipes around there? hose bib outside? etc. good to hear you are on top of it; mold is nasty. that could well be just a lot of air moving through over the years, and dropping a little water here and there. is the place saturated? fiberglass will let air through, and if it is wet air, you could get condensation. over time, it looks real bad, but may not be horrible.

joecaption

Post a picture of the outside of the house in that general area.

CoconutPete

Definitely post a pic of the outside.

This is just me thinking out loud here, but you already cut a hole in the drywall, so why not pull the baseboard and window trim and make a bigger hole? It'll be easy to replace the piece if you go from the wall to the window.

Is that window really low to the ground?

brianxmurray

I did a little digging last night. The area removed was nice and wet. Insulation was a soggy mess as well. There is a vapor barrier in the form of batt insulation. Home does have a/c. No pipes in this area of the wall or hose bibbs. There is a downspout (see pic).

I am still leaning towards a window leak since the osb board was dry (moisture reading around 12%)

Home is about 6 years old and located in Ohio.

Thanks for the help and insight!

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jklingel

Just fyi, a builder in Ohio went out of business because of complaints of wet, soggy carpets, walls rotting, etc. Read this if interested. It shows how visqueen can kill a house.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...moisture-walls

brianxmurray

Interesting site - thank you. When i go to fix the hole in the wall can i just stuff in unfaced fiber insualtion?

brianxmurray

I get alot of wind driven rain where i am at. The weep holes on the window sills were completely blocked with dirt, mulch, etc.. could a blocked weep hole cause such damage?

This whole issue has me freaked out.
Any help or direction is appreciated in advance

jklingel

Brian: no, do not just stuff in batt insulation, imo. You'll surely have gaps and compressed insulation intermingled, neither of which is of much use. Sorry, but if you want to fix this and not "sweep it under the rug", you are going to have to tear off some sheet rock and have a look see. Cut the rock right on the middle of the studs so you can install a new piece(s) fairly easily. It sounds and will look horrible, but it is not all that bad. Block the room off so dust does not go everywhere, use fans to exhaust, blah, blah, and have at it.

joecaption

It's easyer to cut along the side of a stud then to try and make a cut in the middle of it and there's not going to be any nails in the way.
When your ready to patch it you just sister a 2 X 4 so you then have 1-1/2 of wood to attach it to.
Cut along the paint line at the top of the baseboard before removing it so you do not peel off the sheetrock paper.
To remove it, make the cut, tap in a wide puddy knife to get it started then use what's called a trim bar or even a flat bar will work to pry it away from the wall. You do not lift up on the bar you twist it side ways using the putty knife to pry againt so you do not poke though the sheetrock.

When cutting sheetrock that's on a wall I use an ossilating saw. It makes a nice smooth cut really fast and does not cut so deep that you may cut a wire.

jklingel

Ahh so. Sounds like an easier plan if there aren't too many wires in the way.

brianxmurray

Thanks for all the feedback. Problem solved. As it turns out the leak was due to the flashing for a bathroom exhaust fan not being sealed..there was about a 2cm gap leading directly to the interior wall. Dry as a bone now even with all the weather from Sandy.