New Construction Basement Odor

Post Reply | Watch this Post

We are about a week away from moving into our new construction home and we have a musty basement odor problem.
If waiting for the closing on the house wasn't bad enough, now this!

We had tremendous amounts of rain this spring/summer here in the NE. During construction of the home the remains of hurricane Isabel dropped many inches of rain and basically flooded out the basement, the frame was up but not the bilco door, and the basement floor was yet to be poured, so the 6" of gravel on the ground was covered with rain water. As time passed this water did seep into the ground.

Now, we have this strong musty smell in our full basement and we need some ideas to help us decrease this smell, if not eliminate it.

We have a sump pump in the basement, the lid is sealed. The foundation is cinder block, with no visible dampness or wet blocks. Poured concrete floor. Each of the 4 windows in the basement have water condensing on them. French drain tile surrounds the home sending the collected water off the lot.
We were considering a dehumidifier, but after reading some forum posts, maybe a ventilation system would be better. Anyone have any ideas and pricing for this system?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks guys/gals!