Dealing with a persistent musty odor after water damage
Dealing with a persistent musty smell in a specific room after an HVAC leak and high humidity event, while wanting to avoid unnecessary demolition of walls and ceilings to find the source.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1running a portable air conditioner at night
- 2leaving the air conditioning running but raising the thermostat
- 3planning to have a water-damage company come out to inspect
- 4opening up ceilings and walls to locate hidden moisture or mold
- 5using different cleaning products
- 6using air fresheners
- 7performing an ozone cleaning
- 8opening windows
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I still have a strong musty smell in my master bedroom.”source ↗
“I’m extremely sensitive to smells, so this has been a miserable week for me.”source ↗
“What I really don’t want to do is start unnecessarily tearing out large sections of my bedroom walls and ceiling just to figure out where the smell is coming from.”source ↗
“My house has had a persistent sour/musty, damp, sometimes ammonia-like odor that I have suspected originates in the basement.”source ↗
“Our basement does flood. This summer it flooded a few times. I have a dehumidifier downstairs that I’m constantly emptying.”source ↗
“I’m not sure what to do, the smell is driving me insane. Even opening windows isn’t helping at this point.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 10How to clean mold under water damaged flooring without DIY experience
- 8Why do my towels still smell musty right after washing?
- 6Why are my metal floor vents sweating and growing mold?
- 12Why is my AC air handler wet and smelly?
- 7Water damage in a brand new construction house
- 7How to get chemical smells out of carpet