My daughter has a 70 year old brick house. The walls are (exterior to interior) brick, clay tile blocks, and plaster (no insullation). She recently had the house tuck-pointed sealing up some “ventilation” passageways. Now her two closets which butt the exterior have starting growing mold. I’ve thought about three ways to correct the problem: an open vent in the interior wall over the door; insullation board and sheetrock; and duct furnace air to new floor registers.
Its obvious the Apr/May 04 FHB, pg 55 is the problem. Assistance with solutions appreciated.
Replies
here is some answers
http://www.fcs.uga.edu/pubs/current/C767.html
I think you need to give this some more thought.
Mold needs 4 things: the right temp to grow at, air, food (including dust) and moisture.
The illustration on p 55 of FHB 162 (May 2004) is modern brick veneer detailing; there might not be the air passage plane described in that illustration in the brick on clay tile construction you describe.
So it _might_ be a simple as providing weep holes, but I'm wondering if they completely screwed up the tuck pointing and significantly more moisture from outside is now getting into the wall. (Remember, brick is not water proof and tuck pointing can significantly affect moisture penetration into a brick wall.)
If that's the case, this could be a significant problem.
I think you need another mason to come out and evaluate what you have and what to do about. The solutions you have suggested would be treating the symptoms and ignoring the potentially significant problem.*
Some technical info on tuck-pointing is at the Brick Institute of America's excellent site:
http://bia.org/bia/technotes/t7f.htm
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* Often in houses of that masonry type of construction (at least in my area) the floor joists are let into pockets in the masonry wall - if the wall moisture levels are high enough to encourage mold growth inside the closets, they could easily be high enough to cause the ends of the joists to rot, ultimately leading to structural failure.
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