Just a question about posts in crawlspace

General Inspection Topics
1

I was conducting an inspection and found what appeared to be salt on the post.

I was in full Tyvek with a respirator that had started to fog up, so I could not see well. I am new but I have never seen this amount to salt built up on wood posts like this.
Is this normal or is it due to excessive moisture, or something else?

I was conducting an inspection and found what appeared to be salt on the post.

I was in full Tyvek with a respirator that had started to fog up, so I could not see well. I am new but I have never seen this amount to salt built up on wood posts like this.
Is this normal or is it due to excessive moisture, or something else?

Thank you for your help.

This is in Washington State on the west side; it is about 30 miles inland.
Thank you for your help.

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2

Did you touch it? Salts will be crunchy crystals, organic growth will be something else.

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3

From my point of view here it doesn’t look like salt.

Was it on all the posts and only at the base?

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4

I scraped it with a bit of wire that I found in the crawlspace. It was not soft like something organic, it was not a crunchy as I thought it might be. But it did sparkle a little under my flashlight and the camera flash.

5

It was only at the base. The posts run to the footing is just below the black vapor barrier.

6

A possibility is that the posts are wicking moisture through the concrete resulting in signs of efflorescence.

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7

Looks like some sort of growth, fungus ?

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8

Looks like white rot or wet rot to me. Marc will probably confirm later.

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9

Looks more fungal to me when I zoomed in on the pics. I agree with @kleonard about the wicking from underneath the barrier.

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10

If it is rot, it’s certainly not a good thing for posts holding up the house.

Could it be they didn’t use treated lumber? :face_with_spiral_eyes:

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11

If they didn’t it would be moronic.

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12

And what is going on here?

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13

They looked like moisture stains to me.

14

It also looks like it is sitting on top of felt paper and not imbedded in the concrete. Is this just an add-on beam or are there more of these posts?

15

I checked the other posts to see if the other posts were treated; to me they did not appear to be.

16

if they are just sitting on top of the footing then Kevin’s hypothesis seems likely and they didn’t use treated lumber.

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17

There were definitely more of these posts. This was not the only one.

18

Isn’t Washington in a seismic region? That is how they attached the post to the beam is with a scab?

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19

So, just a theory. Sap or water draining down from the lumber? I have seen some very very wet treated lumber before. And the chemicals used may react to something such as the mat underneath.

Also, a good place to perform a pick test to determine if deterioration is present.

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20

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
It’s some form of wood decaying fungi.

What are the “black squares” for?
Is that a cement or soil base? That wood is like a wick sucking up H20 or coming from above?
Poor adhesion/failed design of mastic-strip or hydrostatic waterstops?
If my theory is on target, the structure is not very old… ? >>

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