Water damage from leak

15 years ago

As a result of frozen pipes bursting, we experienced severe water damage at my job. Professionals came in and did the clean up, which included opening walls to check for moisture, etc. Now weeks later, there is a strong mold and/or mildew smell from a small area in which much water came down. Since walls were opened and inspected and now everything is painted and repaired, what would next step be in finding out what is causing the odor? Also, could paper that had been wet, cause such odors?

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Comments (3)

davidandkasie
15 years ago
if boxes of paper got wet, then yes they can and will mold. it could also be MDF furniture.

we had a flood in Sept and had several reams of copy paper and several pieces of furniture tha thad to be tossed due to molding up before they could dry out.
gaila53
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks for the info....I am going to follow up and explain to my boss why all the paper products should be thrown out.
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fandlil
15 years ago
You should also have a mold assessment done by someone who is IMPARTIAL. That means the assessor does the inspection and reports his findings and recommendations, but does not do the recommended remediation because that would be a conflict of interest.

Mold remediation can be costly and disruptive. But in your case, since the problem apparently originated recently, with the water leak, it should be possible to correct without too much fuss.

The assessment consists of visual inspections ( and sniffing) and also taking air samples and having them tested in a lab. The remediation consists of wiping all surfaces suspected of harboring mold and having airscrubbers run for a few hours or a couple of days, depending on the extent of the problem. The airscrubbers are essentially very large vacuum cleaners with HEPA filters that blow the vacuumed air out to the outdoors.

You should also make sure that none of the leaked water got into the AC ducts, because that would definitely harbor mold, and then you would also need to have the ducts cleaned out.

I had the misfortune of having this kind of problem in our home last year. It was costly to fix and very inconvenient. Not fun.