how to seal off a room from air - mould

dada44

hi there - there is a basement in the property i live that has a lot of mould coming up through the main landing. i'm thinking of air sealing it off. Any ideas how i might do this ? The entrance is quite large - about 3 door widths, so it's not going to be that easy.

I thought dust sheets and duct or masking tape may do the trick. even if it's not 100% airtight it may stop the majority of air coming through, right ?

any advice would be appreciated.

wallbash

I would rather think of ways of killing the mould.
But if you are desperate to seal off the space. Build a cheap wooden frame, tight against the opening and get yourself some plastic DPM membrane.
( think really heavy plastic ) available at your local builders merchant, its cut off a large roll. Pin it to the subframe.

But really, look at the cause of the mould and start there.

dada44

thankyou. does the DPM membrane smell at all ?

i got a clear plastic sheet from the local diy shop and it smelt so bad i had to take it down

it's not my property and the owner already got painters in a few years ago to sand and repaint the basement. the mould appeared back after a year and 2 years later i want to do something about it. the owner is not even willing to put a small vent in the basement or buy a humidifier, so my best option seems to just air seal it.

Reece_

Sealing the basement up whilst helping prevent the mould spreading further up will make the situation in the basement worse, and seeing as you're not the owner and don't have the right to seal it up without their permission, you'd surely leave yourself liable if the owner decides to get funny and say you sealed it up and made the mould worse etc.?

DRP

You're not going to be able to seal up anything sufficiently to stop a microorganism escaping or entering, without some serious building work.

As previous poster said, think about killing the mould at source with bleach and other products.

N9eav

Mould is difficult to deal with. I get it even in a ventilated heated house, mainly due to condensation on the older 2 foot thick granite walls. I am not sure you can stop it completely without renovations.
My dehumidifier helps a lot. But so does Astonish mould and mildew cleaner (99p usually).
I guess if you want to hide or ignore the basement then seal it off with a soft wood frame and sheeting of some sort, but it won't go away

muckybutt

Making the space "air tight" will exasperate the problem BIG time, it is possibly the worst thing you could do.

Air movement in any house is key.

dada44

do you keep the dehumidifier running all the time ?

i know sealing it up may increase the mould issue big time in the basement, but my issue is to stop it from coming upstairs.

i'm not sure how i'd make the wood frame, i was just thinking of taping the dust sheets directly onto the walls

N9eav

dada44 wrote: »

i'm not sure how i'd make the wood frame, i was just thinking of taping the dust sheets directly onto the walls

Most tapes will eventually come unstuck under the weight of the sheet.


Without seeing the gap you wish to seal up. what sort of gap is it?

Reece_

Taping dusts sheets up isn't really likely to stop mould spreading , mould spores can obviously be really bad for your health, I'd write to the landlord again asking for it to be sorted otherwise you'll ask environmental health to look at it. He has a responsibility to make sure his property is not hazardous.