We have a very conventional house at our community, that acts as our primary communal building here. It is one of the only finished buildings on site and we are trying to figure out what to do with it. The problem with it is terrible mold and
water retention. When it was built, long before we inherited the community, it was intended to be a garage! Do we keep it as a primary living space and make all the adjustments needed for it to be livable? We would prefer to build tiny houses and live in those, and convert this building into something else. We have a couple ideas which I will share later.
First some specs - it' has an unfinished
concrete slab sitting on top of limestone slab rock in the living area, kitchen and office. The two bedrooms and pantry were additions and they are just a raised
wood floor, with support beams under sitting on top of the earth, sort of like how people build patios, but they are bedrooms. The inside walls are drywall and the exterior is sheet metal, as well as the roof. The ceiling is also sheet metal and there is fiberglass insulation between ceiling and roof. The problem is that the house sits on slabrock near the bottom of a large hill where water collects really heavy. On the south side is a forest, keeping it shady, cool, and very damp. There is little airflow. The eaves are very short, to non-existant. We do have rain water collection on the north side/ uphill side of the building which helps to divert some of the water. But we still have all the water flowing down the hillside that settles in front of the house like a
pond.
Last year the mold inside was so bad we had to throw away and burn a lot of the rugs, mattresses, clothes, etc. and we painted the walls with kilz and standard indoor paints. The mold isn't as bad this year as it hasn't been as wet, but we have some mold and fungal colonies creeping back in. We want to fix the problem this year. The kilz and paint just covers up the symptoms, but the issue is that there is the location, the fact that the floors were never finished, and very little ventilation. This year we have been keeping windows and doors open, and running a fan 24/7. We prefer a passive solution. And natural solutions.
One of my ideas is to convert this building into a three season building. Take out some of the exterior walls and put on screen instead, so we could use it all year except winter. Then we'd have plenty of ventilation! Ideally, all of us want to start building a tiny house this year. We have
experience with
cob and roundwood framing, so we can make it happen. We want to keep this house to be used for workshops and interns to stay in.
Should we make the dramatic change to open up this house? Even if we do that, we will need to continue living in here until the tiny house build happens. So until then... do we seal the concrete floors with conventional sealer? Do we pour concrete over the floating wood floors? Do we divert the water somehow? How do you divert water for a large hill? Can we seal the floors with wax or some other natural sealer? Can we slap some clay slip on the drywall? It's a huge building so I don't know what is feasible for us to invest time and
energy.
Thank you in advance for your time!