Poor ERV Intake Placement / Mold?
Just moved into our renovated house. We’ve been living here for about a week.
The weekend of the move the kids (4 and 6) had fevers, coughs, etc… at the rental house. They have improved but noticed they still have a cough a week later and my daughter’s eyes were watering very badly this morning to the point we had to wipe crust off her entire face.
I’ve been monitoring the air quality from for Co2 and all that but haven’t paid much attention to the actual intake.
Looking at it this morning… the brick around the area has mold on it. There are leaves on the ground. It’s on the north side of the house below a roof valley that gets a lot of water off the roof.
It seems likely that we could be pulling in mold from the intake.
We plan to get gutters in the spring and I can put crushed stone or something down so it drains better in general — but should this intake be moved? It’s about 2′ off the ground.
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I see a metal pipe exiting the ground, and a vent to the right of your ERV intake. Can you describe the function of both?
Is the ERV install new ?
The metal pipe coming up from the ground is irrigation that leads out to the yard the previous owner had.
The other vent you're talking about is an old crawl space vent I'm assuming. The crawlspace has been encapsulated and the vent now not functional.
Yes, the ERV is new. Has been running for 2-3 weeks. I checked the filter and it seems clean.
I'd cap that pipe, if it's not already.
Your kids were sick before you moved in...and 2 weeks is the typical turnaround, so not sure I'd be too worried about that just yet. Being north side and damp, I would want to eliminate any added water to that corner, put down crushed rock and keep it free of leaves etc. that would hold moisture. Code in most places is ok with 2'.
If temps are below zero outside, I'm not sure any mold would be active...not dead, but dormant. You could shut down the ERV for a few hours and spray a 50% bleach solution on the exposed mold that you see in case the foundation wall itself is above freezing due to interior heating. In a newly renovated space, there could be a multitude of VOC sources so it would make some sense to ramp that ERV to a higher level if you are able to increase ventilation rates for the next few months.
Are you able to check that crawlspace? It looks like mold on that wall (old?) that may have originated from that vent. If the house was renovated and kept cool (or heat off for some time), I'd want to confirm that all is good in the crawl space.
Hopefully a mold "expert" can chime in here on your issue.
It's been pretty warm here, into the 40s the last few days (Traverse City, MI). Lots of snow melting.
The crawlspace is nice and dry with no mold.
She came home today with sore eyes and gunk in them, so we're going to get her checked out. I turned off the ERV in the mean time...