Basement Cleaning

Now that all the Christmas stuff is out and up, it was time to get things cleaned up in the basement and straightened out.  We also had all the things that were displaced by the Indian Invite stuff to put back as well as the Halloween decorations since there wasn’t room to get those bins back out with the Indian Invite mess.  As I started getting things moved, I also began to do some cleaning up in the floor joists.  They were full of cobwebs and dust.  I actually can’t remember the last time I cleaned this stuff up, so it is probably a good idea that I started.

As I was moving things, such as the washer and dryer, and the freezer to clean all the dust under them, I was able to notice that there was a hole in the duct coming from the dryer as the base where it joined with the dryer exhaust.  This lead me to start looking up where I have the dryer duct exiting the house and I noticed something.  There appeared to be water stains on the wood and the caulk around the window frame seemed to be deteriorating to the point of needing to be replaced.  As I looked closer, I found that the caulk that I had used to fill the crack between the top of the foundation and the house frame was loose, and easily removed just by pulling.  I concluded this was due to the years of having the dryer vent into the window well and that over time the steam and exhaust had settled in the window well, even possibly up under the aluminum siding (which could be trouble with the frame, or at least the old siding that is under the aluminum).  I think this is what is causing the water stains on the wood as well as the paint peeling from the outer frame and any deterioration of the caulk. 

The first step was to get the old caulk out, which didn’t take much effort.  I still had a couple of cans of expandable foam crack filler from the yellow jacket incident this summer so after going outside to see what the possible extent of the problem might be, I just sprayed a line up into the space figuring if there was a gap there, this would definitely fill it.  This is, I am sure, also what was leading to finding yellow jackets in the basement a couple of months ago.  Now that the gaps are filled (or refilled) I will need to see what I can do to get the dryer exhaust away from the window well, and above grade so it doesn’t migrate up under the siding, or around the window.  I have some ideas, so I will have to see what I can possible get done.