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Posted by RayV on August 30, 2006, 11:46 am
Steve K wrote:
> Sorry for the length...
>
> The problem: Smelly, finished basement. Only in the summer. The rest of
> the ywear it's fine. It's not a full underground basement, the rear door
> goes out to the lawn. Musty, cat smell, water, etc.
>
> There are three rooms. The main room is probably 22' by 19', the next
> room is the kitchen/laundry room about 12' by 12', then the bathroom 6'
> by 7'. Then another small room where the laundry shoot it, maybe 7 by
> 4'. The ceilings are 7' high. I gutted this basement 7 years ago and
> framed it with 2 x 4s, new sheetrock, studs, took out some HEAVILY
> water-damaged 2 x 4s in the laundry room and bathroom. Put in
> indoor/outdoor carpet, new windows, new door, new wiring, etc.
>
> Before we bough it it flooded every timed it rained fairly good. We had
> a drain put in around the perimeter of the house and solved that problem.
>
> The wall in the laundry room and laundry shoot room is the one that is
> completely underground. I applied Drylock to this wall about 5 years
> ago. 5 years is what the can said was it's limit. So that may be a
> problem, but we're getting no moisture on that wall.
>
> The other problem. My wife runs a daycare down there and it's
> embarrassing when the parents drop off their kids to say the least.
>
> We have a dehumidifier running all the time. But it's just not removing
> the odor that well. There are three windows in the main room plus the
> entrance door. When we have all the windows open the cross-breeze seems
> to mask the smell good enough.
>
> But we don't want to mask it, we want it gone.
>
> Do we just need a bigger dehumidifier or is this problem just inherent
> to the house and we just have to live with it?
>
> A one car garage butts up against this living area with an entrance
> door. Our two outdoor cats basically live in the garage at night. We
> have two litter boxes in there. Sometimes (a lot of times) they miss the
> litter box and the garage stinks.
>
> I'm sure this gets into the basement somehow but the smells seem to be
> entirely different.
>
> So we're frustrated in not really knowing exactly where the smell is
> coming from and how to get rid of it. So much so that we might sell it.
> We're worried the 2x4s are moldy and might have to come out again, etc.
>
>
> I think I should have a home inspector come in and see what they say.
Why hire a home inspector and spend money? Call several waterproofing
campanies and they will check it out and give you an estimate for free.
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