One of the benefits that I brought up earlier of MoistureLevel smart foundation system is the remediation of moisture problems in slabs on grade. How many of you have experienced the difficulty of excess moisture in slabs on grade? It usually manifests itself by bubbling up vinyl tile and epoxy coatings building up excess moisture under floor coverings debonding them and creating mold and mineral deposits.
This is not an easy problem to remedy. Most solutions consist of installing a sealer on the top side of the slab. For any of you who have worked with sealers and hydrostatic pressure realize that sooner or later the hydrostatic pressure will eventually push any sealers on the surface off and cause them to fail. Some manufacturers even guarantee that their sealers will work for this application but sad experience has shown that sooner or later these guarantees are merely gambles for warranty with inevitable failure and have resulted in in many lawsuits.
Let’s look at the practicality of that solution. First of all it requires removing all floor coverings including tile of all types. This in itself is quite an operation that includes removal of the occupants during the work. What happens to the areas underneath the cabinets and fixtures in both kitchens and bathrooms? If this area is not sealed as well, then the moisture is concentrated and funneled to those areas. This results in huge moisture problems in areas where they can bring the most problems, creating mold and other issues where they are most damaging for human health. The alternative is to remove all of those cabinets and fixtures and treat them before putting them back.
This solution is starting to look similar in scope to the removal and replacement of the entire floor with tremendous expense and displacement of the occupant. This again ends up being close to rehabbing the entire interior of the house by the time it is over with because painting and other restoration is usually required by the time it is finished. All of this for a questionably non permanent solution.
Contrast that with the ease and simplicity of the MoistureLevel system. It can usually be installed in one day or less while the occupant stays comfortably in the house. This can be done for a price that is orders of magnitude less. In addition this is a permanent solution where the moisture level under the slab is regulated forever balancing it with the moisture level on the top side of the slab minimizing slab curl and other performance issues that come with imbalanced moisture levels between the top and bottom of the slab including minimization of ASR.
