Damp smell behind skirting board
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Joeyaza
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Damp smell behind skirting board

by Joeyaza » Wed Jul 28, 2021 10:18 pm

all I’ll try and explain the best I can. So I live in a house with a full sized basement floor. Around a month ago there was really bad rain where I live for around 5 hours, flooding all over the city etc and some water came in through on the floor in one of the basements.

We’re almost certain what had happened was the drain pipe put so much water out it made the patio outside this wall collapse as some of the tiles had collapsed and there was a big hole in the patio after the rain. The builders replaced the drain pipe ( as it was a bit short before) and fixed up the slabs. I have posted pictures of this. I’ll try and explain.. so that wall (and the rest of the house) has a black plastic membrane surrounding it, which I assume is the damp proof barrier thing. Anyway that had come loose also in this area, so they dug up and drilled this barrier to the wall to make sure it stayed against the wall. As I said they also fixed the slabs again so they weren’t collapsed.

A damp proof guy came and tested the walls and oversaw what they were doing. When he tested the wall his machine went off around the skirting board area but not before then.

Since the rain it’s been very hot here and the room itself gradually dried out and the damp smell went away. But today there was some heavy rain for around 3 hours. And when I went into the room and knelt by the skirting board I could smell a damp smell again.

As far as I can tell it only seems to be toward the right of the wall though.

Does anyone have any idea what this could be and how it can be fixed ? The builders are coming back soon to fix up the interior ( new skirting board etc) but would prefer if they didn’t until we knew the issue was solved.

The damp proof guy suggested having plastic skirting boards down there also ( I’m unsure why though!) ( I don’t speak the language here so well yet, so a lot had to be translated for me)

Thanks everyone !

Ps I can’t seem to get the photos to be the right way I’m sorry about that.
But they show the outdoor patio which the wall leads onto. I’m sorry they’re dark. If you can see the metal rail type thing that goes across, the plastic membrane tucks just behind that all the way along. But I can see this rail has small holes where it comes away from the wall ( I hope it’s visible!) I’m unsure this is doing anything.
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