Mold and Water Damage Help in St. Thomas, Ontario

We provide mold removal in St. Thomas, Ontario, along with water damage extraction, drying and moisture inspections. St. Thomas has two very different kinds of housing: an older core that grew up around the railway, and large new subdivisions on the edges of town. The moisture problems in each are different, and so are the fixes.

Mold removal in St. Thomas, Ontario: old core and new builds

The Railway City has a lot of houses from its railway years, many of them brick, in the streets around the downtown. On the other side of the ledger, St. Thomas has been one of the faster-growing communities in the region, with new streets going in year after year. A call from a hundred-year-old two-storey and a call from a three-year-old bungalow rarely turn out to be the same problem.

What goes wrong in the older core

In the older streets, basements were built for storage and a furnace, not for living space. When they get finished with framing, insulation and drywall against an old foundation wall, moisture gets trapped and mold grows on the hidden side. Attics in these homes often have bathroom fans that were added later and never ducted outside. Old drain stacks and supply lines add slow leaks inside walls.

The fix in these houses is usually removal of the affected finishes under containment, cleaning and drying the structure, and then a change to how the space is ventilated or drained. Older houses can also contain asbestos in plaster, flooring or pipe wrap, so suspect materials should be tested before anything is torn out.

What goes wrong in newer subdivisions

People are often surprised to find mold in a house only a few years old. New homes have their own pattern.

• Construction moisture. Concrete, lumber and drywall compound hold a great deal of water when a house is finished, and it takes the first couple of years to dry out. Basements finished early can trap it.
• Tight construction. New houses leak very little air, so moisture from showers, cooking and breathing stays inside unless the ventilation system is running and set up correctly. A switched-off or unbalanced HRV shows up as wet windows in winter.
• Attic frost. Warm air leaking through pot lights, the attic hatch or a loose bath fan duct condenses on cold roof sheathing. Dark spotting on the north side of a new roof deck is a common find.
• Settling grade. The soil backfilled around a new foundation settles over the first few years and can end up sloping toward the wall. Sump pumps in new areas often run hard for this reason.
• Unfinished landscaping. Downspouts left without extensions and lots waiting on final grading send roof water straight to the foundation.

If your house is new, check your new home warranty paperwork before you pay for repairs to a defect. Our role in those cases is finding and documenting the moisture, removing the mold and drying the structure. The readings and photos are useful to have when you talk to the builder.

Homes near Kettle Creek and the ravines

Kettle Creek and its valley run through St. Thomas, and a number of neighbourhoods back onto ravines and slopes. A lot at the bottom of a slope takes surface water from everything above it during a heavy rain or a spring thaw. A walkout basement on a slope has one wall fully buried and one wall at grade, and water tends to collect against the buried side.

On these lots, look hard at where water goes in a storm. Swales should carry it around the house, window wells need drains, and downspouts should discharge well clear of the foundation and not toward a neighbour. Low-lying properties near the creek should also pay attention to flood messages from the local conservation authority.

Signs to act on

• A musty smell that is stronger after rain or when the house has been closed up.
• Dark spotting on attic sheathing or around the attic hatch.
• Staining, swelling or soft spots at the bottom of basement drywall.
• Condensation running down windows through the winter.
• A sump pump that runs constantly, or one that never runs at all.

How service works from St. Thomas

We are based in London, a short drive up the road, and St. Thomas is inside our service area. You send photos of the problem and we send a firm written quote within 2 hours, between 7 am and 9 pm. Mold work is done under containment with negative air through HEPA filtration. Wet structure is dried until the framing reads under 16% wood moisture content, with readings logged daily, and you get a report with before and after photos.

Most attic jobs run $2,300 to $6,500, basement jobs $1,200 to $9,500, and water damage jobs $1,950 to $11,000. Payment is 50% to book and 50% on completion. For a house that is being sold, the clearance report goes out within 48 hours of work starting. We do not rebuild, so drywall, flooring and paint go to a local contractor once the structure is clean and dry.

A sensible first step is ten minutes with a flashlight. Look at the attic sheathing from the hatch, the bottom edge of the basement walls and the sump pit, and take photos of anything that looks wet, stained or fuzzy.

Common questions