Hello all,
I was just over by my parents’ house in Chicago (2-flat brick built around 1945). I noticed the one exterior wall in the living room had some bleed through in that I could see outlines of the studs and all the drywall screws through the paint. I remember painting the walls in the living room about 8-10 years ago, and this is the first I’ve noticed the bleed through. The original walls were plaster of Paris over slats, and I don’t remember them redo-ing this wall with drywall. With all the talk about mold lately, I was worried it could be something like that.
What do you think, is there a problem, or just repaint the walls.
Thanks,
Tom
Replies
You might want to do a search on this, as it was covered sometime before here at Breaktime (I and others responded to a similar question a while back). Most likely it's not a mold issue, but an issue with soot and or heavy dust/dirt. Differences in temperature of the wall cause the dark vs. light areas.
My sister had this issue in her house... the problem was a propane burning fireplace where the logs had started to burn and give off soot. The soot caused the exact patterns you're talking about... every stud and screw could be seen.
To add to this... I read an article about a year ago where insurance companies were no longer covering soot damage, as people who burned a lot of candles inside their houses were starting to rack up the claims. (My sister's damage claim was definately not cheap!!)
If you have any problems finding the info, post back and I'll try to find the previous posts.
I tried searching the archives, but drywall screws and framing bring up a lot of hits. If you could point me in the right direction, it would be much appreciated.
My folks don't have a fireplace, but both smoke, and the TV is in this room, so...
It sounds like the problem isn't inside the wall, just needs to be repainted.
Thanks,
Tom
Sorry for the really bad advice about doing a search here. I tried it and didn't find @!$&! I know that we talked about this about a year ago, but when I tried the search (in many different ways for about 15 minutes), I found nothing...
Anyway... I couldn't find exactly the articles I was looking for on the web, but I found a few that capture what I'm talking about. Try these links as a start:
http://www.loghomelists.com/airqualitypt3.asp
http://www.consumersrevenge.com/reports/candle2.htm
You can probably find more by searching for "soot" & "indoor air quality", perhaps also "ANDing" that with "studs", "screw", etc through Yahoo, etc.
If it's still questionable that it's soot and not some other fungi/mold, you can always seek out an indoor air quality expert to do some tests... I guess it's always best to play it safe...
Hope this helps!
Big,
You may have a roof leak. Are the windows and row locks or sill caulked well? Are the gutters and spouts blocked with debris? Mold is usually a symptom of moisture migration.
Ditch