Question from Renee’
I have been very sick since Thanksgiving and your book Home Safe Home has been very helpful. I am seeing an Int. MD who treats naturally; my neurotransmitters are very sensitive and we are slowly, getting them back to being ok! In the meantime, I discovered black mold and water in our crawl space which is below our family room!! A plumber helped resolve this issue and we used your Borax Solution. Although we do need to do it again!! The wall between the crawl space and out doors had basically deteriorated because of the poor, drainage under a very, large deck that came with the house when we bought it 18 years ago. The wood above the brick foundation has now been replaced; the deck has been removed and we are in the process of putting in a screened in porch and correcting the water drainage problem around our house!!
The problem is that we thought adding mulch to the house would help with the problem; we were wrong! So, I have been told that we need to get the dirt/mulch removed so that the first brick is exposed and so air can circulate. Our house has steel siding on it!
Now the question – one solution is to buy anodized aluminum and to attach it below the siding tented with dirt under it and dirt and mulch on top. It would be slanted away from the house so that the water would go away from the house. My handyman and the landscape/concrete man met yesterday; and the landscape person recommended hand digging along the two sides of the house that need this and putting in a drain tile (PVC) which woudl be connected to the drain that is behind our house in the next neighbors yard. The PVC put up a red flag for me and they convinced me at the meeting yesterday that it would be ok because it was in the ground.
I have tried to find the answser in your book – Home Safe Home; but, couldn’t come up with a comfortable solution. A part of me feels that the aluminum tent should be sufficient since I believe in the rapturer is not that far away! What are your feelings about the options and do you have any other options?
Is it true the PVC would be ok for my plants, birds and me since it is buried in the earth and that I only need to be concerned with how he plans to connect the PVC pipes? I know they used PVC on my wholehouse filtration system. It was amazing what is in the City of Racine’s water!!
So glad to find you!!
Debra’s Answer
My husband tells me that using the PVC pipe drain is standard procedure for the problem you describe and that it is necessary to completely handle the problem.
Though PVC is one of the most toxic plastics, it is commonly used underground. It will not pose a direct health danger to you or other living things in your immediate environment when buried underground (though it does cause environmental harm elsewhere when it is being manufactured, and it is not biodegradable).
Often we need to make trade-offs. My opinion is that in your case, it’s more important to handle the mold problem in your house. It wasn’t built correctly in the first place.
