Removing the stink from a barn?

[theboman]

My problem: It stinks in there! I call it a barn, but there's never been any animals in there, besides the meth addict that got dragged out by the police before I got there. It smells like there has though, like a combination of pee and mold.
"?

The meth thing would worry me! In KY Realtors are required by law to disclose any former meth labs that are for sale etc. Yikes. It's a dangerous thing.

Now if they didn't cook the stuff there. Bales of hay....nice and dusty from a barn may help absorb the smell. Paint, Kilz is pretty good to help cover a lot of oders. Some manure to toss around never hurts a barn either.

 

[zmoz]

If there was meth in there, you could have a serious contamination problem. You'd better determine what is there before you mess around with it.

I've read that basically the best way to deal with that is bleach and airing it out.

I personally talked to the cop that dragged the guy out of there, while he didn't want to discuss the exact legal issues, he knew he was living back there and the cop had probably had been inside. I'm pretty sure they determined it not to be a "meth lab", though I did find several little plastic bags with, umm, residue inside. I put on gloves and flushed them down the toilet.

I may call the police department and see if there are any more specific details they can release to me about what happened exactly on the property. I don't think there are any serious dangers.

 

[jaquetarr]

Don't know what stage you are at with this work or how tight the building is, but I know a UV lamp filter will kill all airborne virus & mold.
Might be an idea you can use at some point.
Rgds,
tim

 

[MarkV]

Not sure what they use but I have worked a couple of building that were fire damaged and the clean up companies spray the place down with something that eliminated the smoke oder well. Maybe a google search for clean up products used after a house fire would help. Or your local fire department may well have the information.

MarkV

 

[EddieWalker]

Not much that you can do about humidity in the air unless you seal up the building and install an HVAC system. Humidity in the air isn't really that much of a problem with mold, but condensation can be a huge problem. There is a big difference.

Is the roof metal? Condensation forms on the surface of materials when you get a change of temperature from the outside to the inside to such a degree as to form water. Soda cans from the fridge on a warm day do this all the time. The easiest and cheapest way to solve this is ventilation and air flow. A fan is very good at this, and there are allot of low energuy fans out there that you can buy to accomplish this. I've installed them in crawl spaces with excellent results.

To get rid of bad odors, I like to use swimming pool shock. It sells by the gallon, and is a higher concentrate of bleach then laundry bleach. Remember that bleach is poisonous and pure bleach will kill you. Laundry bleach is a very mild dilution of bleach. Even smaller dilutions of it is added to drinking water to kill bacteria. The swimming pool concentrate is pretty strong and in bathroom remodels, it's about all I can take. Usually I use it in a hand held spray bottle and soak the heck out of the problem area. On bigger jobs, like a concrete floor in a garage that a person has let dogs live in, and use for a bathroom, I either dump a gallon or two of it on the floor and spread it with a broom, or I use a two gallon garden sprayer to apply it. Just spray it on real thick and cover everything.

Eddie

 

[Pops15]

Since the creek is so much lower than the floor I doubt you're getting moisture from it. Are you sure the roof isn't/hasn't leaked? Is the concrete sloped away from the barn or has it settled? If its sloped towards the barn its acting like a big funnel. Look at the grade around the rest of the building. Does it slope away from the building? I wouldn't put a vapor barrier under a gravel floor. If you drive a wet vehicle in there it will just hold the moisture in the barn. Dig inside the barn. If you find moist soil near the surface the moisture is likely coming from inside the barn or surface water running in from outside.
Is the barn sealed well against the block building? Are the blocks painted? If they're bare they could be soaking up moisture. That could be at least part of the source of your humidity.
Eddie also makes some very good points about condensation and how to deal with it.
Everyone seems to be on the same page about using bleach or similar product.
Mold can be hard to kill on some surfaces. The bleach will kill the surface mold but doesn't always kill it deep under the surface. I agree with the post about spraying KILZ or similar paint.
Pops

 

[charlz]

If it was a meth lab you would know, the HazMat team would have been out there etc. Most likely the smell is because the guy was using one or more corners as a bathroom May seem counter-intuitive but does the floor have good 'run-off'? Can you start by washing the whole place down and then worry about drying it out? Dusting the place with baking soda might help as it is supposed to absorb odors.

 

[2manyrocks]

In some localities, the hazmat team would come out and in others, they wouldn't. Some localities don't have the funds.

Might be good use of time to go pull the arrest report and read it to see if he was charged with possession or charged with manufacture and possession.

 

[zmoz]

Not much that you can do about humidity in the air unless you seal up the building and install an HVAC system. Humidity in the air isn't really that much of a problem with mold, but condensation can be a huge problem. There is a big difference.

Yeah, I'm mostly trying to get it down to around 50-60%, which is normal here in Oregon...but right now when I walk in there it's like going into a greenhouse. I'm going to install a permanent power vent somewhere. I am trying to "seal" it up as much as I can otherwise, there's lots of little holes and things around, but no water leaking in...

When I'm done I want it to be more like a "garage" than a "barn", I don't have any animals besides a Dachshund. But it will always be called "the barn" because I've always wanted a barn.

Is the roof metal? Condensation forms on the surface of materials when you get a change of temperature from the outside to the inside to such a degree as to form water.

No, it's OSB covered with asphalt shingles.

Most likely the smell is because the guy was using one or more corners as a bathroom May seem counter-intuitive but does the floor have good 'run-off'? Can you start by washing the whole place down and then worry about drying it out? Dusting the place with baking soda might help as it is supposed to absorb odors.

Yeah, I don't think he even made it to the corner. *sigh* The floor does run down hill pretty well, that's where I want to lay the plastic so water will run off like a roof, and then a level layer of gravel on top. I've tried rinsing the floor with mixed results...I think the easiest way to clean the gravel is to rake it up into a pile and "water" that for a while.

Of course I'm trying to keep the water to a minimum for obvious reasons... Anybody wanna come help me rake gravel? Free beer....

Eventually I'd like to cover it all with concrete, but that won't be for a while. What do you think about asphalt as flooring in a barn?

 

[have_blue]

It smells like there has though, like a combination of pee and mold.

That perfectly describes mice.

Remove any source of food, set traps, and don't kill the rat and milk snakes.

Natural of forced ventilation will take care of the moisture.

There are no chemicals I know of that have lingering odors. The worst offender is usually
grease. A little tube grease in a barn will stink it up for years. Scrubbing it with strong soap
and airing it out helps, but nothing can totally eliminate grease smell.