Hi,....First time poster.
I've got a situation here in Gulf coastal Texas and need to get a good feel for what my options are. Quick description is this: We had extensive foundation leveling done recently, the carpeting which had been in place for decades was ripped up and discarded, and now we're noticing varying signs of dampness on the concrete where the carpet used to be. It is unknown whether this was always the case or if this had something to do with the foundation work. Foundation Contractor has been called about this, downplays it as either normal condensation or a plumbing issue outside his realm of work. I've aired this on one other internet forum and they all tend to be very alarmist, stating basically that I'm up a creek without a paddle short of having thousands and thousands of dollars at my disposal for more work requiring extensive digging.
...So this site has caught my eye as probably more of a specialized flooring discussion board and I'm hoping to lay out a more detailed description of what's going on in the interest of a 2nd opinion.....Here goes: We've noticed that on high humidity days since our foundation work was done, that the uncovered concrete slab/floor tends to get darker and generally look "damp". At first, we were suspicious of plumbing lines having been cracked during the house leveling but have talked with a plumber (not the same company as the foundation people) who tended to downplay this possibility. The connection to the dampness seems to be directly related to atmospheric humidity after studying the situation for approx. 2 months. We live less than 10 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. The worst that the dampness has been was one afternoon when four individuals had used the shower one right after another, the dishwasher had been used for two loads right after another, and the weather outside was "soupy"....humidity bordering on fog and rain was on its way. The concrete was dark and, within the tiny depressions of its surface texture, you could sometimes catch the sheen of water if the light was right. I ran my hand across this area at this time and there was barely - but definitely - dampness bordering on wetness.
Now for the complicated part... We are living paycheck to paycheck except for lower-end-of-five-digits sum I inherited recently which we'd hoped to use to make some modest repairs to this small house. It's never been the local garden club house of the month and it's never going to be -- the sheetrock is cracked, the grandkids' scribbles adorn the walls, there's a missing area of stop moulding in the doorway to the kitchen where a refrigerator had to be "manhandled through" a decade ago and this has been roughly patched over with wood putty,.....some areas of the fence outside have had to be reinforced with wire mesh "sewn on" with baling wire......you get the picture.
My question is basically this: Are the nay sayers who are warning us about attempting to put down any kind of floor on top of this slab coming from the point of view that complications might get real ugly from a cosmetic standpoint or is the real deal such that we might somehow (1) run a considerable risk of rendering our house uninhabitable by putting down a floor in this present environment, or (2) run a considerable risk of whatever floor we might decide to put down becoming "ruined-beyond-even-poor-people-such-as-ourselves-being-able-to-use-it within 10 years as a result of this amount of dampness I've described? Thanks in advance for your answers...
I've got a situation here in Gulf coastal Texas and need to get a good feel for what my options are. Quick description is this: We had extensive foundation leveling done recently, the carpeting which had been in place for decades was ripped up and discarded, and now we're noticing varying signs of dampness on the concrete where the carpet used to be. It is unknown whether this was always the case or if this had something to do with the foundation work. Foundation Contractor has been called about this, downplays it as either normal condensation or a plumbing issue outside his realm of work. I've aired this on one other internet forum and they all tend to be very alarmist, stating basically that I'm up a creek without a paddle short of having thousands and thousands of dollars at my disposal for more work requiring extensive digging.
...So this site has caught my eye as probably more of a specialized flooring discussion board and I'm hoping to lay out a more detailed description of what's going on in the interest of a 2nd opinion.....Here goes: We've noticed that on high humidity days since our foundation work was done, that the uncovered concrete slab/floor tends to get darker and generally look "damp". At first, we were suspicious of plumbing lines having been cracked during the house leveling but have talked with a plumber (not the same company as the foundation people) who tended to downplay this possibility. The connection to the dampness seems to be directly related to atmospheric humidity after studying the situation for approx. 2 months. We live less than 10 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. The worst that the dampness has been was one afternoon when four individuals had used the shower one right after another, the dishwasher had been used for two loads right after another, and the weather outside was "soupy"....humidity bordering on fog and rain was on its way. The concrete was dark and, within the tiny depressions of its surface texture, you could sometimes catch the sheen of water if the light was right. I ran my hand across this area at this time and there was barely - but definitely - dampness bordering on wetness.
Now for the complicated part... We are living paycheck to paycheck except for lower-end-of-five-digits sum I inherited recently which we'd hoped to use to make some modest repairs to this small house. It's never been the local garden club house of the month and it's never going to be -- the sheetrock is cracked, the grandkids' scribbles adorn the walls, there's a missing area of stop moulding in the doorway to the kitchen where a refrigerator had to be "manhandled through" a decade ago and this has been roughly patched over with wood putty,.....some areas of the fence outside have had to be reinforced with wire mesh "sewn on" with baling wire......you get the picture.
My question is basically this: Are the nay sayers who are warning us about attempting to put down any kind of floor on top of this slab coming from the point of view that complications might get real ugly from a cosmetic standpoint or is the real deal such that we might somehow (1) run a considerable risk of rendering our house uninhabitable by putting down a floor in this present environment, or (2) run a considerable risk of whatever floor we might decide to put down becoming "ruined-beyond-even-poor-people-such-as-ourselves-being-able-to-use-it within 10 years as a result of this amount of dampness I've described? Thanks in advance for your answers...
