Five years ago, all these ideas were basically
new to me. . . so in case they are unfamiliar to you, let
me say a few words.
Before living in the Pacific Northwest,
I lived in Santa Fé for 21 years. My last two
homes were both environmentally conscious, almost environmental
masterpieces for their vintage, but what passed for "conscious" at
the end of the 20th century will probably seem retarded by
the standards that are emerging now.
In most of the world, there is an indigenous
architecture and building style that is both unique as well
as suitable to climate and life styles. In the NW,
I have failed to discover anything that remotely passes for
intelligent adaptation to the realities of endless rain and
darkness.
 |
This
is a shot of the crawl space after the removal of
debris, raking, and grading of the ground.
|
 |
Here we see a
partially completed CleanSpace installation. The process
will result in a completely sealed crawl space. Details
follow. |
The idea of the CleanSpace system is to enclose the crawl space (or basement)
in such a manner as to prevent moisture from the ground as well as air
from entering. All the vents are sealed. The extremely durable
laminated material is treated with a fungicide and is therefore mold
resistant. The blue side goes down, leaving the white side exposed. The
material not only covers the ground completely, but it goes up the foundation
walls. It is affixed with glue and grommets in such a manner as
to prevent moisture (and gases) from under the enclosure from leaking
into the air space. It also eliminates decaying organic material
from becoming part of the ecology of the building or home. Therefore,
even if some roots are still in the soil under the property, the decomposition
of this material does not pose a risk to indoor air quality.
The question is how important
is this? I think I can say a few words on the subject. It's
November now. It's dark and rainy and quite cold. The
house has been almost as bad as right after the flood. My
nostrils were burning with the odor of mold gas. Monday
afternoon, the bulk of the obnoxious materials were removed,
along with the vapor barrier. Ironically, the air in
the house was actually a little better Monday night than
it had been in the previous weeks, this despite the removal
of the visqueen. Tuesday morning, the remaining moldy
materials were removed, adding two more bags to the three
from Monday. The air improved a lot. Then, the
entire space was raked and graded, stirring up "anything" --
and this is regarded as a hazardous undertaking by mold remediation
specialists because there is a risk of disseminating spores
any time a colony is disturbed.
Therefore, the entire space
was immediately sprayed with a fungicide. I want to
observe its efficacy before disclosing what we used. Suffice
it to say that we used something very intense but natural. This
had an odor of its own, enough to mask everything else, but
the odor dissipated quickly in the crawl space. It
went into the house and garage. This was fascinating
to me because the garage has no windows or vents so the only
air moving into the garage must be from the air intake upstairs
in the house (where the fungicide was only faintly detectable)
or from duct work in the crawl space. Because of lack
of ventilation, the odor in the garage is dissipating very
slowly.
I expected an "ordeal" because
of the combination of a "disturbance" and fungicide. The
workers began laying out the CleanSpace material Tuesday
afternoon. As they were leaving yesterday, I put an
ozone machine in the crawl space to attack whatever the fungicide
may have missed. This odor came into the house ever
so slightly. It was practically undetectable in the
crawl space. Last night, I slept well for only the
second time since moving into the house!
Pictures
of the CleanSpace Installation 
Ingrid Naiman
16 November 2005
Hidden Mold
in Crawl Space || CleanSpace Installation A-Z
CleanSpace
Installation A-Z || Garage || Air
Pressure
Remediation
Attire || Duct Cleaning || Particulates || Mold
Dog
Sacred
Medicine Sanctuary
Copyright by Ingrid Naiman
2005
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