Foundation Moisture Problem (Point: townhome, tile, live)

[duffy1384]

I've got a real problem that perhaps someone here can help with.

I've lived in a house with a slab foundation and built in 1959 for about 18 years.

Last November I started having a musky odor in my den area.
I ended up removing the carpet and found moisture along the interior wall adjacent to my kitchen.
There was also moisture along the exterior walls and a small crack running diagonally across the floor with moisture along its length.

When I say moisture, I mean that the concrete had a damp look. No actual water standing.

In an effort to get rid of the ordor I removed the paneling which had started getting warped along the bottom edge due to moisture.

The odor remained.

Thinking that the moisture could be related to broke drain pipes under the house I had a plumber scope the drain pipes and he found nothing, though that does not rule out small fractures that maybe could not be seen with the camera. He also did pressure tests to make sure the water pipes were holding pressure and not leaking. He said that he did not think is was related to the plumbing and had no explanation.

This house has it's water pipes run in the attic. At sometime in the history of the house apparently they did have a foundation leak and cut the the underground pipes and rerouted through the attic.

The most significant moisture seems to occur when the humidity is high and the temperature is above 60 degrees.

Attached is a picture taken this morning.
Temperature: 66 deg.
Humidity: 81%
Due Point: 61 deg.

The moisture was barely visible two days ago...

[duffy1384]

Here is a pic 48 hours later
Temperature: 66 deg.
Humidity: 18%
Due Point: 21 deg.


The moisture is gone -

The white residue is borax I used several weeks ago to trying kill/control any associated mold.

[txtoal]

Since no one has responded, you might have better luck on the House forum. There are a lot of house related repair questions on there. Sorry, I hope it gets resolved. I don't really know anything about this kind of issue.

Ok, I did a search just to see what came up....could it be when the cement was poured, like it didn't cure correctly or something?

Was there a vapor/moisture barrier installed? I ask because when I replaced my carpet with wood flooring in my old townhome, there was no vapor barrier. Just padding and carpet directly on the concrete slab and we found some moisture around the doorway entries. The installers put a barrier down before laying the wood floor and I didn't have any issues after that....for the MOST part until we had a torrential rain downpour a few months later and my wood floor started popping up right in front of the doorway entries. We found out that the slope was not enough to direct water away from the house and water was getting in underneath so we had to take out the concrete in front of the doors outside and repour new concrete and slope it better. Just in case, I had tile installed in front of the doors and never had an issue after that for 10 years.

Good luck.

[duffy1384]

I have no idea what they did in 1959 when the house was build, but thanks for the information regarding your experience. It sounds like it might apply to my situation also.

I'll check out the House forum.