We recently purchased a house (2 months ago). When we viewed the house the previous occupants had already cleaned out the cellar and re-painted all the walls and cleaned the floor so everything look nice and fresh

However, a couple of weeks ago we noticed that there was a strong musty smell in the cellar. Also, in certain places on the walls there are, what appear to be, salt crystals (is this effloresence??) coming through the cement in between the bricks. There are no obvious signs of mold, however

Lastly, and this is the weird part, the concrete floor has turned green. Now, I genuinely can't remember if it was like that we viewed the house but I've never heard of a concrete floor turning green. We've had someone come round to look at it and he believes there is water coming in through the ground (and leaving iron ore deposits, hence the green discoloration) and going up the walls. I don't even want to begin to imagine how much this will cost to repair if it really IS a damp problem.

I'm skeptical because we've also been told that it could simply have been excess humidity. We had a very hot few weeks just after buying the house and the cellar has (or, rather HAD) very poor ventilation (we've solved that issue now). It's possible that the air in the cellar got very hot and then cooled down and water has simply condensed on the floor and walls.

We are somewhat suspicious the previous owners did the whole cleaning/repainting business in order to cover up an existing damp problem (we're taking legal advice on this...)

Any comments would be very welcome. Here are some pics that might help

Green discoloration


Salt crystals (Effloresence????)


Far wall

Hi Gino.

Most basements/cellars suffer from a little damp especially in older properties where you only tend to find them anyway!

S

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Measure twice, cut once!

Perhaps, but the smell wafts up and into the main part of the house, it's very annoying. Is there nothing we can do that doesn't involve digging up the floor and stripping the walls to fix the problem?

Get a de-humidifier down there, and if possible get some sort of ventilation fitted.

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Verwood Handyman
I Know it says I'm On-line, but I might have just left myself logged in, whilst I'm out....

We have a de-humidifier running all day and they had two openings which had small panes of glass in them which we have smashed out to allow air to get in. It doesn't appear to have made much difference.

Hi Gino,

You could have the room 'tanked'.

S

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Measure twice, cut once!

What does that involve?

Good ventilation or heat would work wonders.

Depends what you use it for.

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Never mind, found out what 'tanking' means :)

Well, we'd LIKE to use it for storage but we had to remove some of the things we had put down there (old chairs, boxes) as mold was beginning to form on them

Yes, sorry, I said there was no evidence of mold but I meant on the walls/floors. There was mold forming on the stuff we had put in the cellar. To me, this indicates, that the AIR was moist after the hot weather. Surely mold would also form on the walls/floor if there was a rising/penetrating damp problem?

It's just a damp environment, it needs an air flow.

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Well, as I said, we've smashed out the glass in the small sky-light type windows that were fitted in the part of the ceiling that was exposed to the outside. Let's hope that's enough.

Won't that let he rain in and make it worse.

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I don't think so. We've covered them enough so that rain doesn't get in but air does.

You need air flow in and out. Can you get air in from low level, even it it means a duct.

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I guess it's something we can look into. There are, in fact, two windows that we have opened up. One on the far wall and one that's in a small annex room within the cellar itself.

This is a rather crude MSpaint drawing but it shows what I mean (I hope!)