Moldy Moderns
Newer, poorly constructed homes more likely to harbor fungus
By Jim Weiker
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
When Lori and Nate Lee moved from Maryland to Lewis Center five years ago, they bought the perfect home for their growing family: 2,800 square feet, four bedrooms and a basement they immediately finished.For four years, they enjoyed the home - until this summer, when they decided to replace the wood deck with a concrete patio and discovered rotted wood where the deck was attached to the home.
The Lees contacted Craig Reichman, owner of C&R Builders in Sunbury, who started removing stucco to determine the extent of the rot.
What he found, in addition to the rot, was mold - under the stucco, under the two doors leading into the home and under the wood floor near the doors.
"I kept cutting and cutting and cutting,"
said Reichman, who has spent the past month repairing the damage.
For Reichman, the discovery was all too familiar. He and other builders and experts say mold plagues some newer central Ohio homes, especially those built during the housing boom of 1999 to 2006.
"I'm seeing this over and over," Reichman said. "The time frame when those homes were built, in that period, five to seven years, will have those issues."
The Lees' $390,000 home was built by Darby Homes, a custom homebuilder that is now out of business. But the problem isn't confined to one builder.
"I've seen it from several builders," Reichman said. "It's sad to say that homes built 100 years ago are holding up better, which is upsetting because we have so much better technology and materials today if we used them."
Others agree that mold has become a familiar problem in new homes, especially those with stucco siding.
"There were not problems like this 35 or 40 years ago," said Jerry Warner, the city of Delaware's chief building inspector who helped a Delaware couple negotiate a mold problem with Dominion Homes.
In that case, the problems were so advanced that Dominion replaced the stucco, insulation, weather wrap and sheathing on an outside wall. The homeowners thought their problems had been solved until they discovered that electrical outlets along the same wall were so damp that they occasionally sizzled, and that moisture buildup was pushing kitchen baseboards from the wall.
Now, the homeowners are continuing talks with the builder.
When easily removed in bathrooms and kitchens, mold is usually harmless. But some types of mold such as stachybotrys can be dangerous, especially to infants and children and those with respiratory problems.
Building experts and others who have combated mold say there are several reasons that it seems to be a greater problem in newer homes than older ones.
For starters, mold might simply be a price central Ohio is now paying for the housing boom, said Benjamin Zacks, a principal in the Zacks Law Group in Columbus, which represented more than a half-dozen homeowners in Hilliard's Hoffman Farms subdivision. The homeowners were seeking a remedy from Dominion Homes, which built most of the homes during the construction explosion.
"The Hoffman Farms experience was in part due to the circumstances of the housing boom," Zacks said. "It became common, when they were putting up homes so fast, to find problems with wrapping - and homes lacking airtight seals and with the exterior material. There (in Hoffman Farms), mostly it was stucco, and it was applied too thin."
Zacks said one client's home was so damp that mushrooms grew through the living-room carpet.
Some of the cases ended with Dominion buying back the homes or repairing the damage. Others remain in negotiation.
Dominion CEO and President William Cornely said the company's response to mold complaints depends on whether the problems can be shown to be defects in workmanship or lack of maintenance - a distinction that can be difficult to determine as the home ages.
"If the problem shows up in 24 months, it's a construction issue and we'll take the necessary steps," he said. "But if it's 20 or 30 years old, it's a maintenance issue. When it moves from construction to maintenance between those time periods is hard to say."
Dominion is far from alone in facing mold complaints, Cornely said, but is attracting more attention because of a front-page Dispatch article a month ago featuring a severely mold-infested Dublin home built by the company.
"I don't know that anyone could build 25,000 houses and never have a problem," he said.
Dominion has made one major change after receiving complaints about mold: It now uses cement board siding - commonly called HardiePlank - instead of stucco, Cornely said.
"We haven't used stucco in three or four years," he said. "We're always looking at ways to improve our buildings."
David Stubbs, a specialist in building systems and indoor-air quality who testified against Maronda Homes in a 2006 mold-related lawsuit, thinks many of the new-home mold problems come down to poor workmanship.
"If I built a house 80 or 100 years ago, I was a true craftsman," said Stubbs, who lived in central Ohio before becoming director of facilities planning and construction for Clarke County Schools in Georgia. "I'd build one house a year. ... We don't build like that today. We take shortcuts."
Other explanations for the rise of mold problems in newer homes include:
• Oriented strand board, which became a common sheathing material for homes about 20 years ago, absorbs and transfers water more readily than plywood, which was the sheathing of choice for older homes. Even when plywood is used today, it is more likely to be three-ply plywood instead of the four- or five-ply used in earlier homes.
• Stucco is thinner than it used to be, with less cement, and is frequently poorly installed, with two thin coats instead of three thick ones.
• Many homes built during the housing boom used a paper vapor barrier, which can be difficult to properly install, instead of Tyvek or other wraps commonly used in the past few years.
• Newer homes are typically built in empty fields, offering no protection from wind, rain and sun - especially a problem on western exposures.
• Homes built in the past 20 years tend to be tighter than older homes and therefore more likely to trap moisture inside if not properly ventilated, creating what Tom Flood, the president of Air Technology in Hilliard, calls a "giant petri dish." This was especially a problem in the 1980s and '90s, when builders commonly put plastic between the studs and drywall as a moisture barrier.
• During the housing boom, homes didn't receive the attention from swamped inspectors that they might have otherwise.
Steve Verssen, owner of Vertech, a Cincinnati inspection service that has been involved in central Ohio mold cases, recalls teaching a group of home inspectors three or four years ago in a Columbus-area home under construction. A building inspector drove up, jotted down some notes on a clipboard and drove off, without ever approaching the home.
"When things were busy, that's what happened," Verssen said.
He thinks some mold problems might be caught if inspectors scrutinized the envelope of a building before it is covered by siding - including the sheathing, the weather wrap and window flashing - in addition to the mechanicals and structural items. (Some city inspectors examine building envelopes, but such inspections are rare.)
Zacks agrees and urges homebuyers to test for mold or moisture if they have any doubts, even if the home passed city inspections.
"People think if the house has a bill of occupancy, it's safe," he said. "But it might not be."
Homeowners who do find mold and hope for relief from their insurance companies are likely to be disappointed. According to the Ohio Insurance Institute, most companies dropped standard mold coverage from their language eight or 10 years ago because of the volume of claims.
jweiker@dispatch.com
Breaking the mold
Every home will build up mildew and mold in moist areas such as bathrooms. Much of it is harmless if regularly cleaned. But some types of mold, such as stachybotrys, can be serious, especially to children and those with allergies or respiratory problems such as asthma.
The clearest evidence of mold is seeing it. Other clues that your home might have a hidden mold problem include:
• Moisture routinely appears on inside walls or windows.
• Dark water streaks appear on the outside walls of the home, suggesting black mold behind the wall.
• Screws, electrical receptacles or other metal pieces in the wall are rusty.
• The home has a musty smell.
• Floors under carpet along exterior walls are damp.
• The home's residents have coughs, watery eyes or sore throats they can't shake.
Steps to take
• Monitor indoor humidity with a hygrometer. Readings should be below 50 percent in the summer and below 35 percent in the winter.
• Place a dehumidifier in damp areas such as basements.
• Open windows or use exhaust fans when producing moisture in the bathroom or kitchen.
• Remove carpet in damp areas such as basements.
• Contact a mold inspector or other specialist if mold is visible on drywall, wood floors or other organic surfaces. Such inspectors aren't licensed, so consumers should check their credentials and ask how long they've been in business and how they've been trained and certified.
• Contact a lawyer if you think you have a legal case against the builder, but expect to spend in the five figures if you sue.
Sources: Air Technology Inc.; National Mold Remediation; David Stubbs; Vertech Inc.; Jerry Warner; Zacks Law Group
Additional sources
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