Welcome to my Homepage Blog. Here you'll find stories about inspections I have done and facts I think are interesting to share with you. Come back often to see what's new.
-Glenn, a.k.a. The House Whisperer
| Mushroom Tale |
| Written by Glenn Stewart |
| Saturday, 10 April 2010 14:22 |
|
We were conducting a home inspection in a vacant Oakland house during this past rainy season. Built in 1948, the sturdy little house was in pretty good shape. What greeted our eyes was a single mushroom growing out from between vinyl floor tiles. Mushrooms are fungi and they grow in damp places. It's not uncommon to see fungi growing in houses. The most common areas are the bathroom, under the kitchen sink, around toilets, in showers and garages. Most bathroom floors use a particle board underlayment, which is like a sponge when it gets wet... The perfect environment for fungi spores to grow. The only remedy is to dry things out. If there's a plumbing leak, it has to be repaired. If the floor underlayment is wet, it has to be removed and replaced. In bathroom areas, keeping the floor to bathtub intersection caulked will prevent water from getting under the flooring.
|
| Last Updated on Saturday, 10 April 2010 15:07 |
We found the typically items... double-hung windows that were painted shut, ungrounded wall outlets, cracks in the plaster walls... Until we went into the bathroom.