I have a sewing room in my finished basement but the basement gets damp and smells of mildew. This could potentially ruin alot of material. The concrete walls are covered with wallboard and painted. The floor is still the bare concrete. There are no apparent leaks in the foundation. It is a walkout basement. It is much better in the winter when the woodstove burns all winter but come warmer weather (SW Michigan) it gets cool, damp and mildewy. There are no windows in this room.
Julie Anne ~ Allegan, Michigan
Hi Julie Anne, What you describe is the classic basement odor, luckily you have a walkout basement which can make it easier to remedy the problem. One of the first things I would try is a dehumidifier, they are usually pretty good at removing moisture and potential mildew problems from a basement during the summer months. Whenever I have a basement that has leaked for some reason I always put a dehumidifier down there for a while to help get rid of the musty smell. Just remember that it has to be emptied on a regular basis. I am not sure where Allegan, Michigan is in regard to Lake Michigan, but I’m sure there is a lot of humidity in that entire area during the summer.
You don’t mention if you have air conditioning in your finished basement. If you do, I would keep the basement windows and doors closed on humid days and use the air conditioning. On days when the exterior air feels less humid open up the windows to your basement, hopefully you have screens, and keep the door to your sewing room open, too. If you like to keep your sewing room door closed, it is possible to install a ventilation grate in it to help circulate fresh air. That should help with any dampness you feel.
Lastly, and I have nothing to base this on other than my personal experience, I don’t think you will ever completely rid your basement of that musty smell until you install carpet in the basement’s finished rooms. Several years ago I was building high end homes with optional finished basements. The basements were walkouts, and the basements that were not finished smelled like basements. The units that had most of the basement finished with sheetrock, insulation, HVAC, and carpet felt and had the odor of the rest of the house, but as soon as you walked through the door into the unfinished mechanical or utility room it smelled like a basement again. The carpet and padding seemed to help contain the odor of moisture which came through the concrete slab even though there was no leak there. You might want to try that if the other suggestions don’t work.
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Provided that the basement is well drained and leak free, a good dehumidifier should take care of the moisture problem. I would, however, recommend that you get a good basement dehumidifier instead of models you can buy in department or hardware stores for many reasons:
- Smaller generic models might not be able to handle the job or might consume a lot of energy to do it. An Energy Star rated basement dehumidifier is able to dehumidify large areas and be more energy efficient.
- Basement dehumidifiers can be be emptied automatically, by having them discharge into the sump pit or any available discharge line. Generic models need to be consistently, and manually emptied. When the trays are full, they will still run, consume energy, but won’t be getting any moisture off the air.
I would also suggest that you get rid of the wall board if it is made of wood, drywall, or is covered with latex paint or anything organic. They might be the actual source of the mold smell, because they absorb moisture and, being organic, favor mold growth.
If you want to spruce up the walls, acrylic panels or simple insulated panels are a best choice.
if you have a musty oder you will have mold. mold lives on sileose heat and water dehumidafyer is good after you clean up the mold. moster wiks through the masonary witch feads the mold if you get rid of the moster the mold cant grow with the other two. i do this for a living sadle to say you nead to gut the basemint the mold is behind the sheet rock or eny other seleose substrate wood is seleose i sagest puting a sumppump in. if you dont have one makeing sher your down spouts run 4 feet away from your house sealing the out side of your foundashion is better than the in side fix or instale outside dranige tile or a cheaper fix would be. instale 6ply pastic 6 feet sloped away from your house coverd with groud planted with grass. for get the rocks and shrubs yes its a lot of work but water is a powerful agunt and will work its way in were ever it can.do not carpit. clean and keep dry.you get mold in 24hours of moster. in 72hours you get toxic mold.have you had it more then 72hr. oder ant the subject mold is.i use calbrite for my cleaner from caltex international syracuse ny. ps all sercomstanses are differont .as every house ant the some becouse of were there siting.