I think our house is making us sick. Since my sainted Father-in-law put in these nice windows, my wife has been feeling sick, as have the cats. Now that I'm home, I'm getting headaches as well.

I suspect some mold issues at a spot where an addition connects to the main house. It has leaked since we moved in, but we've put off doing anything about it. This weekend we'll get the RV back and move into that while I take off the old paneling and lathe & plaster wall to see how bad it might be.

Ouch, that is a tough one to solve. Mold can be hard to track down and to get rid of. Good luck.

the new windows your father-in-law put in are probally alot more energy efficient at keeping the cold out and when an older house looses those air leaks and becomes "tighter" then sometimes problems like the one your explaining can happen. With the house being tighter the mold spores won't have a way to be carried out and stay in the wall cavities. If you have hot air heat you may have to change the return air filter more often as it will catch some of the spores and they can multiply in the filter.

quote:

Originally posted by devilsplay:
the new windows your father-in-law put in are probally alot more energy efficient at keeping the cold out and when an older house looses those air leaks and becomes "tighter" then sometimes problems like the one your explaining can happen. With the house being tighter the mold spores won't have a way to be carried out and stay in the wall cavities. If you have hot air heat you may have to change the return air filter more often as it will catch some of the spores and they can multiply in the filter.

And this is why we are happy to have you on this forum!!

Quick update:

Got the suspended ceiling down and the old paneling off. The walls looked good, but the ceiling (the real one) showed some water damage. I tore down the damaged plaster (with some moldy sheetrock from an older repair attempt) and saw that some of the underlying lathe was also moldy.

The plaster/lathe walls are in fair to poor shape, but instead of messing with them I'm going to overlay some 1/4" sheetrock on the walls and on the damaged part of the ceiling. It looks like the water leak has been fixed at some point, but just in case I'm going to do a quick overlay of some new shingles (until we can get the whole roof redone).

And while I'm at it, I'm redoing the electrical outlets and lighting. It's a long narrow room with laundry at one end and a pantry at the other. There was only one central light, so I'm adding separate lights with individual switches for each of the two areas.

For the pantry I'm taking the old free-standing shelves and using them to make built-ins.

Cool idea using the free standing shelves as built ins. Make sure you replace any wet or damp insulation in the ceiling or walls. It might cost alittle more but it is better than having the problem come back. After you replace some of the roof shingles I would suggest spraying the area down with a hose from different angles to make sure the leak is gone. Try to simulate a heavy rain type of thing. I've seen water leak into a ceiling in one spot but follow a beam or even the lath on the ceiling and leak into the house 20 or 30 feet away.Sometimes it's hard to pinpoint the exact spot, thats the problem i've got right now. I've got a leak from the second floor bedroom window where rain gets in through the old sill and is dripping into my newly renovated bathroom below. Took me months to find it. I started with the chimney, and the roof , it didnt show up until I sprayed the hose on the back of the house. when I hit the window my wife screamed because the water poured in like a fountain. Turned out the old wood window frame was rotting and splitting so the rain water would seep in.