Holes, base trim and cavity drying - Help Please

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

Some advice please.

I've been on this job since tuesday. Upstairs apartment had water heater leak that soaked downstairs.

The wetspots are starting to shrink but i'm running into problems with a few walls. So, thought it might be a good idea to drill some holes.

did test drill in a closet by removing the base trim and put a 1/2" hole. Unfortunately, i ran smack into the 2x4 sill plate. so, I drilled above the base trim on the rest of them. I put a couple of 1/2" holes in each wet cavity. Is that bad?

here's todays pics.

Thanks!

All the walls are interior without insulation with the exception of this outside wall with insulation (here's the flir pic and the following jpg shows the two holes i drilled)

The trouble spots are still maxing out my meter

Am i doing this right? What advise can you give me?

 

[Mikey P]

Why aren't you running air hoses into those (and more) holes?


that or remove some dry wall.

 

[Jeremy N]

Perfect situation for an OctiDry or some sort of wall drying unit. I like the Octidry because you can really force some dry air into the cavity on a budget and charge the same.

http://octidry.com/product/octi-dry-wall-drying-system/

 

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

because no vendors in the state of NM have a wall cavity dryer for sale or rent.

 

[Mark Saiger]

Couple things, in the pic with your meter, it seems there is a coat of plaster type material, so you have more material to dry.

It looks like your surface temp in the thermal cam is 88 degrees in some areas and 71 degrees in the other wet areas.

With the holes, I bet you are going to make a huge difference in drying just with the warm air exchanging in there.

Now, matching the surface again plugging the holes is going to take some talent.

I am wondering what your other readings are in the room... from the dehu and what is happening in other areas of the home and outside.

With the drilling of the holes, I think you will see a difference, but the other numbers would also help me more.....

Mark

 

[Desk Jockey]

Can those types of airmovers take static back pressure? If you are drying as shown you're not getting enough air into the air cavity. I'd move those machines as close to the openings as possible. Or switch back to standard whistle blowers if those units can't take the back pressure.

A probe type meter is really needed when wall drying exterior walls, with a probe you can get an actual reading of the wet or dry materials in the cavity. When we would use the thermal and non destructive as you are using to track down trouble spots, an intrusive meter is really needed to tell definitively.

I'm not convinced by the pictures that it is wet in the cavity (but it maybe), cold air could be causing you the temperature color differences. ???

1/2 is fairly large, in the future you might try a 1/4 paddle bit. It won't be as hard to patch when they turn the sill plate on it's side. Very rare to find that but you will find it occasionally.

We like the good old Drieaz turbo vents, you get much more air flow in the cavity so they dry much faster. But when we have large projects we are forced to dry without them in some areas. You can still do it as you have it setup, it just takes longer.

 

[GCCLee]

That'll be some fun patch work.

Next time make it big enough for a beer can, bottom out helps hold da mud gooder : )


I don wanna buy them tubes either, but they sure are handy



Sent from da bak seat of a Purple Caddy where the roadkill is real : )

 

[Desk Jockey]

http://www.drieaz.com/_DEC/DEC_Product_Base.aspx?decID=1031
I think we have 100 of them, they work really well in most situations.

Although if we find evidence of preexisting microbial growth we would use injectidry's with interceptor's or Adaptidry's with HEPA air scrubbers.

 

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

It does look like plaster in the pic but it feels like multiple coats of latex paint.

Here's some readings from the Bedroom:

3/5
Outside 68.9 / 10.6%
Bedroo 84.0 / 30.9

3/6
Outside 71.9 / 9.7%
bedroo 87.4 / 29.1%

3/7
outside 76.1 / 16%
bedroo 93.9 / 21.1%

i brought in a 2nd 2800i on day two. Outlet temp 109 @ 12%

I never cut out drywall or removed insulation before. but today i feel the need to address the wet insulation in bedroom 2.

Guess i just take out my knife and go all Fredie Krueger like?

man, hope i can find a good drywall guy.

 

[Desk Jockey]

LOL

I agree find out what if anything is going on inside.

Better brief the drywall guy before you send him over. You don't want him to back door you.
Explain to him the sill plate was on edge so you had to drill above the plate.

If and when you go to slicing, go to the highest reading and see what the cavity is like. No point in cutting it all out if its just a pocket of cooler air showing the temperature differential.

 

[Mark Saiger]

Before you go cutting, do you have and insulated wall cavity probe?

2 small holes better than an entire try and patch job, especially if you find out the insulation is dry.


Also, Day 1 was 59 gpp, day 2 was 55 gpp and on Day 3 you were down to 49 gpp.....day 3 the gpp was down in a way better range. Looks like there was a lot of moisture in the building the first 2 days. I wonder how it will be on the 4th day.

I would be really curious....

Hope with the holes in the walls and better gpp, will be looking better.

Keep in mind, not all dry downs are 3 days. A lot of variables can be present and I understand an average is 4.5 days.


Mark

 

[Desk Jockey]

Yep. You're going to get slower drying when you've got wet insulation coupled with fighting outdoor conditions.

 

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

I only have a penetrating meter with 1/2" probes and the Ryobi non-penetrating meter pictured above..

yesterday, when i drilled the two holes in the outside wall some insulation got twisted around the bit and it was definitely wet.

The flir image looks like the water wicked up since day 1.

 

[tmdry]

Make it easier on yourself and hire a tech that is handy and does not mind doing demo.

I can't remember the last time I did any of that myself.

 

[dealtimeman]

Turn the a/c on and keep the fan set to on. Set structures a/c to 70 and let run.

 

[Desk Jockey]

How do you bill for that?

 

[dealtimeman]

George does not own a portable a/c unit and his dehus are not going to be running at optimal conditions at 100 degrees inlet.

On day 5, I would be worrying less about how to charge for the a/c and more on getting the structure dry with the resources I have available.

Smart ass!!!!

 

[Desk Jockey]

Oh my!

 

[Jeremy N]

Sick burn.

 

[kmdineen]

I think Mark is correct; the wall covering is impeding the drying process. The gpp decreasing just mean less evaporation I taking place, you could still have lots of trapped moisture inside the walls. You need to get warm, dry air into the wall cavity.
I would pull the baseboards, cut 1" or so above the sill plate all along the affected walls to ventilate the wall cavities and crank the heat.
When dry put up wider baseboards.

 

[tmdry]

I think Mark is correct; the wall covering is impeding the drying process. The gpp decreasing just mean less evaporation I taking place, you could still have lots of trapped moisture inside the walls. You need to get warm, dry air into the wall cavity.
I would pull the baseboards, cut 1" or so above the sill plate all along the affected walls to ventilate the wall cavities and crank the heat.
When dry put up wider baseboards.

Exactly.

 

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

I'm surprised how fast the walls dried by just drilling holes. The problem walls were completely dry 1 day after drilling them. Insulation felt completely dry to the touch too. I'll post some pics and yesterdays humidity report time permitting.

I am still having problems with both chambers inside the water heater/furnace closets. The particle board the water heaters/furnace sit on is still wet and reading 40% moisture content. I'm hesitant to drill because not sure how to restore the wood to pre-loss condition after putting holes. To do so would require removing the water heaters and furnaces and putting down new wood? please advice .

 

[Mark Saiger]

I'm surprised how fast the walls dried by just drilling holes. The problem walls were completely dry 1 day after drilling them. Insulation felt completely dry to the touch too. I'll post some pics and yesterdays humidity report time permitting.

I am still having problems with both chambers inside the water heater/furnace closets. The particle board the water heaters/furnace sit on is still wet and reading 40% moisture content. I'm hesitant to drill because not sure how to restore the wood to pre-loss condition after putting holes. To do so would require removing the water heaters and furnaces and putting down new wood? please advice .

If everthing else is dry, reduce the chamber size of course, and maybe just make that a chamber in itself. You have to get heated air blowing on that wood, but you still might not be able to save it.

Also, is the water heater electric or gas? I am hoping for electric so do not have to worry about gas pilot light.

If there is anyway of keeping the heat to the wet with a canopy (plastic) or some nature to vent the dehu into, would be great.

Do you have any pics?

Mark

 

[Jeremy N]

I create smaller chambers whenever I can like mark is saying.

An etes or ELE would clear that sucker up in a hurry.

 

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

Great ideas! thanks

i checked on the job today and the moisture content in the water heater plywood dropped from 40% down to 20ish overnight. a couple of the corners are still reading high but hopefully i'll be close to goal of 11% soon.

Did find one wet cavity in the walk-in closet so put a centrifuge tight against the wall and a couple more on an apposing wall. Also, placed the dehu's so they blow into the fans.

Think we're close to being dry here.

Thank you everyone for the quick response and help. It's a good feeling.

 

[Mark Saiger]

If I looking at this correct, it looks like there has been a sealer also applied on the floors before the last carpet install.

That can also slow down your drying process a bit too.

I had a tough one this week as well. Only a 100 amp service in the entire house. Flooded basement and all kinds of little surprises. Talk about have to think on your feet!

I should be all done today including the carpet cleaning (which did brown) and removing the browning.

Glad yours is coming along too!

Mark

 

[Hoody]

I am still having problems with both chambers inside the water heater/furnace closets. The particle board the water heaters/furnace sit on is still wet and reading 40% moisture content. I'm hesitant to drill because not sure how to restore the wood to pre-loss condition after putting holes. To do so would require removing the water heaters and furnaces and putting down new wood? please advice .

I had a situation like this one time where the water heater/furnace sat on a 6" boxed platform where we had to drill holes into to push air into it to dry it. I asked the homeowner if we can take vinyl base cove material and simply wrap it around it for cosmetic reasons. They were fine with it, and insurance gladly paid for it rather than to have a HVAC and Plumbing company to dismantle everything just to put a new platform in. If it ever floods again, the cove material can be easily removed and replaced, and also may help keep water out of the box.