I moved into my house 2.5 years ago. During the first heating season, I noticed that a very strong odor was present. I have a physical reaction to the smell. I can't pin the smell to one particular thing, like mold, mildew, wood, etc. To me it almost smells like a combination of old wood and dirt. This is the my third winter in the house, and it is still here. I only notice it start to bother mevonce the heat turns on, and once it does, I start to have alergy symptoms. This house has put a lot of stress on me, way more than I could have ever imagined. I'm planning on trying to sell my house next year if I can't resolve it. I'm grasping at straws for help here...

After I started smelling the odor, I started looking around the basement and found a few partial walls with sheetrock on them. One small area under my basement stairs had moldy sheetrock. I consulted with a mold expert and remediated it as recommended. I've installed an air exchange and new furnace/A/c, new roof, siding (including replacement of sheething and installing new insulation from the outside), and SO much more.

I feel like I'm down to only a few things it could be.

(1) the basement seems to have a strong smell in the summer, but it doesn't really come upstairs during the summer when the AC is on. Although, there are times when the AC was running that I did smell a little bit of a musty smell. I've done a lot of work in the basement and have isolated the smell to the top of the cinder blocks. I've had the rim-joists spray-foamed to insulate and seal off the top of the bricks. They did an okay job, but didn't
quiet cover every little area and there are still some areas of odor. I can't tell if the odor is coming from inside the blocks or if it's coming from the build rite board that they set between the foundation and the house as a "gasket" of if it's coming from the subfloor above. I'm continuing to work on sealing out the areas where I can smell something strong. Does anyone have any thoughts on whether or not this could be coming from the cinder
blocks or the top cap made of build rite material?

(2) it could be in the house/walls/sheetrock/attic and it just isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Is it common for wood to absorb and keep odor?

(3) The smell is coming from the attic. There are two types of insulation in my attic. About an inch or two of Silva Wool is layed in the attic with fiberglass installed over the top of the silva wool up to the top of the joists. Does silva wool create a strange smell? I've removed some but can't seem to identify the smell.

Does anyone have any recommendations or similar experiences to share?

Thanks for you help!

Have you had anyone take a look inside the ducts?

OR, as a test, if the heat / AC is off for a few days, does the smell go away?

All it would take is some moisture in the ducts (could get there from condensation) added to some material in the ducts (like scrap wood and other debris from construction) and you have all the makings of an odor generator - complete with fan to blow it all around your house.

The ducts would be my #1 suspect.

get a DEHUMIDIFiER made for low temperature or basement. let it run in a 24 hour cycle and after a week if the smell is gone or not as strong let it run all the time.if you have a floor drain run a garden hose from the unit to the drain so no need to empty the container.
also look if you have sewer gas coming in from a dry drain trap , if so put some water in it and 1/2 cup of cooking oil.the oil will keep the water from evaporating.
let us know if any the answers worked.

Thanks for your ideas. I had the HVAC ducts cleaned out the first year I lived here...thinking that was the problem. They had 50 years of dirt in them...it was nasty. But it didn't fix the problem.

I run a dehumidifier in the basement 24/7. It is piped to the floor drain. It has a humidity setting to turn on when it is too humid. I've check the floor drain. The trap is not dried out. My humidifier, dehumidifier, fresh air exchanger, and furnace all dump moisture into the drain.

Thanks again.

after two years of increasing respiratory issues, we started to gut the basement in april. we've got one old closet left to gut, the rest is redone.

your likely candidates ::=

(1) if you have old carpet, rugs, furniture, etc in the basement, take it outside overnight. walk around the yard and approach that stuff in the morning. if it stinks, dump it. it's infested with mold spores.

(2) now knock some chunks of drywall from other spots in the basement, and put them in a bag. same as above. open the bag in the morning. if musty, gut it all.

if you have a damp basement, and any water gets in and starts rot, the nastiness basically takes over the whole basement, because it's all damp.

gotchas you might have that should NOT be there, that we found in ours...

(a) one would think a package shower in the basement would not cover up a 2 square foot hole in the slab around the drain line. one might be wrong upon further inspection. sloppy, sloppy... as well as every drain line coming out of the slab is angled, nothing is straight up and down.

(b) be creative when you find a spot of rot in the basement. it means that water kept coming in there, over and over, and it puddles where you found the nastiness. the answer is going to be outside, not inside. in our case, everything on the east drained under the pavement and walkways. towards the house. because they started laying up the basement wall with 12 inch wide block, and inexplicably switched to 8 inch block at grade.

which explained the odd rise along the side of the house in the breezeway, where it was still 12 inch block.

and which explained the crumbling cap next to the house outside. chip that away with a demo hammer, and ya you betcha then, Sven, sure enough, cracks and chips in the block below grade underneath the sidewalk.

25 tubes of polyurethane caulk, two bags of 5000-pound sand mix, and a bunch of cans of spray foam (to fill block space and provide a backstop that didn't endlessly swallow concrete) we got the underside of the pavement filled in with foam, the gaps and cracks filled with springy-elastic caulk for a lifetime, the block filled with concrete instead of crumbly mortar... and the next day, three months of rain commenced.

in 5 years, our sump pump had never run. it didn't stop for 4 months.

that's what your problem is.

-0-

"silva wool" is probably mineral wool, $1ag (why in hades is $1ag, a common industrial material, on the nanny list here????) of glasslike materials that is made like fiberglass. not an issue itself, but if can hold water and if there were any coatings, they could be organic and cause rot. if you can't smell issues with it, don't chase that now. chase the most likely suspects... fibers, paper on sheetrock, wet wood.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: swschrad,

Hmm. thanks. I don't have any sheetrock or anything left in my basement. I've gutted back to the cinder blocks (there was only a few partial walls). To the best of my ability to look for moisture, I've not been able to find any. I've re-graded the outside of the house to make sure there is no opportunity for a problem, but I've not had significant moisture problems.

When you talk about water draining under the pavement and sidewalks, how far did it drain? Your case sounds kind of unusual? Then again, there are several things you say that I can't make any sense of.

It's funny, because I'm really quite the handy man. My do-it-yourself projects are other people's "you did what?!!" projects. If I could find a problem, I'd fix it. A leaky faucet or a moist basement are problems that can be addressed. You see them, and fix them, although they can be expensive.

Anyways, I'll quit complaining for now, thanks for your help. Keep it coming if you have any other ideas.

jj

Does anyone else smell this odor?

joecaption raises a good point... medicines, work atmosphere, etc. can mess up the way things smell and taste.

-0-

it takes a careful eye to find leak sources, and you kind of have to think like water at times. that is, you always want to go down and in. always.

on a house, you want everything built so water goes out and down. that is the exact opposite.

when you find pretty good gaps on the side where you have a leak into the house, bear down hard on anything that isn't tight and sloped away. when I found some little cracking on what looked like a masonry cap... and pulled up some of that useless concrete expansion foam strip and poked underneath with a bent wire... it all became clear. instantly.

that crummy foam strip is absolutely just a forming block when concrete is poured. after curing completely (and that's a month or two, concrete continues to "eat water" and harden), IMPHO it should be pulled and replaced with a really good flexible long-life caulk that sticks to concrete.

Yeh, other people can smell it too. I think I've become sensitized to whatever it is, so even a small amount that most people would just consider a normal house odor, bothers me. It has gotten better over the 3 winter seasons, but it's still here and it still bothers me. I like this house and love the neighborhood, so I'd like to stay, but I don't have any interest in going through another winter season.

I contemplate finishing the basement, thinking it might seal out any odor or areas where odor could be coming. Except there really aren't many areas left for that. Does anyone have any successful experiences with finishing a basement and making odors go away?

Is it possible that this house had a real bad mold problem and it's spread to the attic and in between the wood floors? There is no evidence of that, but I'm trying to trigger other experiences from other people that I might be able to learn from.

How about the cinder blocks. Has anyone put in a radon vacuum pump before? I'm wondering if there is even just a little bit of humidity in the blocks, it could be causing a moldy, musty, or dirt-like smell. I'm wondering if I put a pump in, it might suck it out of the basement.

Also, what about power attic fans. If it was coming from the attic, might that keep the smell from coming down into the house. I can smell old house smell (wood like smell) in the areas where there are a few small holes in the wall that needed to be patched. I contemplate pulling out all of the fiberglass insulation and having the Silva-Wool sucked out and then putting new insulation in. But thats a lot of work and money if it doesn't help.

Thanks!

How did they clean out your ducts and treat your AC unit for the potential odor? I know of a few methods and they're semi-useful to clean out junk but useless to kill mold and mildew.

They came and did a go a few years ago - but that doesn't rule out that it might still be the source of the trouble. I would have a different crew come out and do it again - be more emphatic and ask about procedures and methods used. It's your money, your health, be nosy.

I would then reasses after.

you're not going to kill mold/bacterial growth in the ducts unless they are scrubbed clean to metal, and then they are fogged with chemicals.

Hey if the smell is because of dirt on carpets, Use a bit of baking soda on the carpet, leave it in there for 12 -13 hours than sweep it or vacuum.. It s very effective (personal experience).. You can use air fresheners.. keep lemon peels behind kitchen and bathroom door..

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DerekMill,

back to first post... "old wood and dirt" smell = mold growth on multiple surfaces, probably in that basement. until all the bad stuff is gone, and the water infiltration is fixed, you will have it.

We can use an air freshener to purify the air or if you are allergic from room fresheners then you can burn an herbal incense and get an aromatic fragrance.

You can Buy Herbal Incense here.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sara_Katz,

covering this up with incense, air fresheners, etc. is not going to help any. first, you have to clear out the rot. that means stopping water from going where it does not belong, and then taking out everything that got damaged. you can get cross-sensitized to the cover-up, too, once your allergy and immune systems are primed for warfare.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.
I appreciate your efforts to make suggestions.
However, this is not a simple problem...for instance, see water damage, find source of water, fix leak, gut rotted material, etc.
Clearly, covering up the smell is not the solution here. But, I also don't have any dirty or rotted or moldy material left in the basement. It's slowly getting better. Thanks.

Here's another, "have you tried." In order to rule out the vents as a culprit, how about closing off all the vents in the house with cellophane or plastic sheeting, air out the house with a big window fan to remove any residual smells, then give it a few days to see if the smell is still there.

One of the best solution to get rid from odor is well ventilated house, office, school or any other living place. Clean your home daily so that no odor will occur. For cleaning kitchen odor use vinegar and let it sit for sometime and rinse with hot water. It clean your kitchen and hence no odor will form.


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