Plywood flooring in a Crawlspace or Basement – the possible dirt floor area cover-up.

As I mentioned before in a post about Fixing Plywood Flooring in a Basement, the existence of a plywood floor could simply be because of an uneven floor during construction. The other ugly truth is that this could be an easy and cost effective cover up for what the floor actually is.

DIRT

Dirt floors in basements and crawlspaces across America are covered up every day with plywood to finally have a solid flat surface for storage. The problem with having a dirt floor is now moisture has a direct path into the basement, not to mention Soil Gases like Radon, Insects and other nasty business.

With open dirt floors in a tight space like a crawl space or basement the levels of moisture can sky-rocket and eventually cause large issues.

The wood that would keep your things steady and dry could become the food for mold and mildew and turn against the homeowner.

If a crawlspace has a dirt floor the best solution would be to encapsulate the crawlspace. This not only keeps the moisture out, it also improves the air quality and protects the insulation underneath the 1st floor of the home.


Related Reading and Links

Read about the Top 6 Basement Mistakes that contractors and homeowners make.

Ask Jacob A question Directly on Pioneer Basement's Help Forums!

Feedburner Feed Discontinued - Sorry to my Readers - New RSS Feed to subscribe too!

For a while I was using Feedburner to burn my RSS feeds for subscribers. And for a while it worked. But Google anounced there were some major problems with it, I had seen it stop taking content from Safe and Dry Blog and so I stopped using it.

Many readers have asked why I did that ...so here I am answering.

The new feed is the blogger default: Safe and Dry Blog RSS Feed

For now, it works, and you folks can still get my blog posts correctly!

Thank you for reading!

*UPDATD*
Found out that it's still "working" but it's lagging about 5 weeks behind or something silly. Needless to say it didn't change my choice, but at least you know you're not gonna be getting cut off completely.
(not like this blog is anywhere as addicting as Chocolate, but one could wish)


Related Reading and Links

Read about the Top 6 Basement Mistakes that contractors and homeowners make.

Ask Jacob A question Directly on Pioneer Basement's Help Forums!

Fixing Plywood flooring in the Basement that’s wicking water from underneath.

Many homes that have finished basements have flooring that rests on a plywood riser. They are cheaper than leveling out the floor or pouring a new concrete floor. Because of this, quite a few finishing contractors throughout the United States help the homeowners create a cheep solution to provide them with a level floor.

The problem with this, as many have found, is that any plywood, 2x4s or any other type of wood absorbs water. This can lead to mold and mildew issues and rotting floorboards.

Fixing a wet plywood floor in the basement
If a plywood floor is wicking water up from underneath and causing issues there are three things that are needed to fix this:

Step 1: Remove the floor
Step 2: Identify the moisture issue
Step 3: Repair the moisture issue
Step 4: Decide on what you’d like to do for the floor.

Having an uneven floor temporarily outweighs any Mold or Water damage that could be generated from leaving the Plywood down.

Controlling the leak and moisture problem will not only keep this from happening again, but it will protect what is left of the finished space.

After that stage is complete you can move onto replacing the floor. The first step is adding a Sub Floor -

Addressing future flooring with a Sub Floor
Many flooring products only work with sub-flooring, or a floor that’s designed to be installed underneath the floor that you will see. It acts to separate the finished flooring from any moisture that might come into contact with it. (A carpet pad is a basic example of this, however a real sub-floor will be solid and not able to absorb moisture or other liquids.)

Products from Grate Products LLC, like WarmShield and FloorShield, have been used by Pioneer Home Basement Finishing and Pioneer Basement for years with great success. Carpets, wood flooring, and laminate flooring have all been installed and protected by the simple introduction of an in-organic sub floor.


Related Reading and Links

Plywood Floors in Crawlspace or tiny basements - Discussion on the Pioneer Forums

Read about the Top 6 Basement Mistakes that contractors and homeowners make.

Ask Jacob A question Directly on Pioneer Basement's Help Forums!

3 Things that help Pioneer Basement Deal with Iron Bacteria

Iron Bacteria is becoming more and more common. As of today, almost 1 in 5 homes have an Iron Bacteria issue that could range from minimal to overwhelming.

As I’ve talked about before, Iron Bacteria is harmless to people, but it’s the machines, drains, and pumps in your basement that can be at risk if there is a problem that is not addressed.

Grate Products put a great deal of research into their Grate Drain products because of this. Here are the top 3 things that help any Grate Product Contractor, including Pioneer Basement Waterproofing of Massachusetts, to deal with Iron Bacteria more effectively than the “other guy”.

1. Larger Openings in the Drain – Iron bacteria, has the ability to create chemical bonds with its self. This allows it to span small cracks, gaps and openings between rocks and drain pipes. The Grate Drain was designed with openings that are too large for this chemical bond to hold against the pressure caused by the volume of water coming through.
2. Anti-Microbial – The Grate Drain and all the active components of the system have anti-microbial built into parts. This keeps the iron bacteria from even wanting to touch or attach itself to any parts of the drain or sump location.
3. Center Wall – The center wall of the Grate Drain helps to make it stronger but it also segregates the two sides of the drain. It helps to keep any water that enters through the wall-footing joint from joining the water under the floor, and visa versa. This also goes for Iron Bacteria. It has been known to form colonies in one part of the basement and leave the other side alone, and this helps any Grate Products Contractor isolate the bacteria issue and provide a treatment for it.

Things we know about how to combat Iron Bacteria:

 Flushing the problem areas with 160-degree water causes the bacteria to go into hibernation which makes it easier to remove from a system.

 There are chemicals that can be used to treat small areas and unclog pumps, such as Iron Out, but they should be used in small amounts if used at all.

 Iron Bacteria feeds off of minerals in the water content. High iron and manganese deposits make for a better place for the bacteria to grow.

 It’s been reported in many of the northern states in the United States, such as Montana, Michigan, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York.

Related Reading and Links

Steve Andras about Iron Bacteria: The Red Stuff - Waterproofing Mag.

Read more about Iron Bacteria on Safe'n'Dry Blog :-)

Read about the Top 6 Basement Mistakes that contractors and homeowners make.

Ask Jacob A question Directly on Pioneer Basement's Help Forums!

Image thanks to FreeDrinkingWater.com

Carolinas to Mid-Atlantic - Historic Storm Touches down - New England to get Rain next two days

Full story by Weather.com: Historic Storm Carolinas to Mid-Atlantic

After passing through the south east, the storm hitting the mide-atlanitc states of New Jersey and Delaware today will sweap into the Southern New England States of Connecticut and Rhode Island late tomorrow (11/13/09) afternoon.

Coastal flooding in addition to the 2-4" of rain fall is being forcast by many local news channels.

Need help with flood water or moisture in the basement during the storm?
Maryland, DC and Arlington VA - Floodbusters Basement Waterproofing
Richmond, Norfolk, Alexandria, and Hampton - Virginia Basement Waterproofing

Connecticut and Southern New York - Charter Oak Enviromental
Eastern CT, Rhode Island and Massachusetts - Pioneer Basement Waterproofing


Read about the Top 6 Basement Mistakes that contractors and homeowners make.

Ask Jacob A question Directly on Pioneer Basement's Help Forums!