Mold Inspection In
Okeechobee

Okeechobee sits just north of the lake at about 26 feet of elevation, with Taylor Creek running along the east side of town. It is flat, and the water table is never far down. After a week of afternoon storms the ground around a slab stays saturated, and moisture wicks up into the bottom of the drywall and the back of base cabinets well before anything shows in the room. On the canal lots along Taylor Creek that is the first place we put a meter.

The city was incorporated in 1915, and downtown still has buildings from its early decades alongside mid-century block houses and newer construction on the edges of town. Each age fails its own way. The oldest frame buildings carry generations of roof patches, enclosed porches and added rooms, and water follows the joints between them. Block houses from the 1950s through the 1970s are reaching the end of their original cast iron drains and window systems. The newest homes are tight enough that the air conditioning has to do all the drying, and when the unit is oversized it does not.

Inland heat is its own condition. There is no sea breeze here, so a wet wall or a damp attic dries slowly, and an air handler runs for most of the year. We check the closet around it, the condensate line and the ceiling below any attic unit on every visit. Seasonal homes that were closed up for the summer are worth checking in the fall, when an owner comes back to a musty house and no obvious leak.