Eighteen Months of Hidden Water in Keller, TX

The Challenge

Not an emergency call, a Tuesday afternoon inquiry about a musty smell in a guest room closet that never went away no matter what the homeowner cleaned. A shower pan liner in the adjacent bathroom had failed at the corner fold an estimated 18 or more months earlier, slowly wetting the shared wall with visible growth on the back side of the closet drywall, the bottom plate, three studs, and the sill, none of it visible from the closet side.

The Approach

The homeowner retained an independent Indoor Environmental Professional for pre-testing and a written remediation protocol, and the crew executed to that third-party scope rather than writing its own, keeping the party who tests separate from the party who remediates for a defensible result. Containment used a 6-mil critical barrier with a three-stage zippered decon chamber and HEPA-filtered negative air, monitored and logged for the duration. About 180 sq ft of drywall, all affected insulation, and the entire shower assembly came out to studs and slab. Framing got a three-pass clean, HEPA vacuum, antimicrobial wipe, and a second HEPA vacuum, plus an encapsulant. Since the assembly was already open to the slab, the shower was rebuilt curbless with a linear drain and a proper sloped pre-slope under a bonded waterproof membrane, the pre-slope the original installation never had.

The Results

The remediation passed third-party clearance on the first test. The bathroom was rebuilt in 3 weeks. The musty odor was gone, because its cause was gone, not just covered up.