I saw a house over the weekend that was built in the 1920s. It's at an intersection with both roads running away from the house slightly downhill. And it has mineral efflorescence in the basement. I didn't see any mould anywhere in the basement or wet spots but I was there in autumn on a warm day with no rain.

All the floors throughout the house were even and the interior hasn't been renovated in at least 50 years. In some rooms, it hasn't been touched for a lot longer. But there are no cracks or bulges anywhere in the plaster or paint. Door frames areas are fine, staircase was fine, so on. Most floors had carpeting or vinyl roll-out lino which is a common thing in these older untouched houses around these parts.

There was a black mould on the north exterior wall of a small room on the second floor across the hallway from the bathroom. That bathroom just has a window for a vent, so I wasn't sure if it was steam moving across the hall or if it was where moisture from the basement was ending up (or both, I suppose). If the house is bought, the mouldy room might be converted to a second bathroom with a shower and a vent, which would hopefully solve part of the vapor problem.

The attic has nothing between the interior and the terracotta roof tiles. You can touch the underside of the tiles from inside the house. No insulation, nothing. So I'm wondering if this is one of those older houses meant to "breathe" to prevent rising damp or channel it or whatever. There's a seriously steep pitch to the roof, it goes down to the first floor so the roof reaches down across two floors (attic and first). There were the little gaps between the roof tiles to allow breathing but the attic was easily 10ｺ warmer than the rest of the house. Dusty as well with exposed beams and lino brocade patterned floor and a creepy 1930s mannequin in the corner too with a musty yellowed dress, if you must know. Anyway, no mould in the attic. I didn't check the beams but I didn't see anything weird.

Back to the basement. It had some efflorescence on the walls for sure, but it especially had it on the ground and forming around anything that was touching the ground (like an old wine barrel) or some other stuff. It was a bit less than this. I suppose it could just be 90 years build up?



I'm not interested in sealing it because it seems like sealants just delaminate or stain, so what's the point? I'm really just curious if anyone has any experience with this in older houses and how you prevent it from getting worse. I'd rather not run a dehumidifier 24/7. I just want to know if the cellar can be cleaned out and then if more salts formation can be prevented. The current owners have all the shelving in the basement on tile stilts to keep it off the salts which is no way to live!

Mr. Benza tells me that apparently the greatest wine cellars have sheets of black mould on the walls from the humidity and that humidity is great for wine. So if nothing happened with the basement humidity he'd probably just take it as an excuse to buy too much wine and then he wouldn't share. Any and all advice or insight appreciated.

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