Who knew that houses need to breathe? Not Sally Buckley of Woodland Park.

But she learned that hard lesson when she bought a house in May 2008 and discovered its attic wasn’t properly vented, according to experts who examined the house.

Here is Sally’s little house. Notice the lack of rooftop vents, wind turbines or gable vents. Several soffit vents under the front eaves of the house are not visible in the photos.

Looking at the rear of the house, below, there are no vents in the garage roof or gable, in the foreground. Nor is there a gable vent on the house although there are three roof vents visible along the roofline as well as various sewer vents and furnace venting.

 Besides what the experts say is poor venting, the house suffered mechanical problems including a questionable bathroom exhaust system that had pipes running over 20 feet across the attic to reach vents.

Even worse, the pipes were not insulated. And one was broken off, pumping warm, moist air from the bathrooms directly into the attic. The result was nasty toxic black mold, visible in the photo below.

 Here are more photos of the mold as it spread into Buckley’s house: 

 In early stages, the mold looks like simple dirt. Below is some of the mold that remained in Buckley’s windowsills Wednesday as crews worked to safely remove it from the house. 

 Powers Thermal Insulation employee Ben Benavidez wraps insulation along the length of the repaired exhaust pipe Wednesday prior to blowing in new insulation.

 Here is a closeup of baffles to be placed over soffit vents to ensure proper ventilation.

Bobby Cotten, general manager of Powers Thermal Insulation, sent his crews to Buckley’s house to remove the mold after builder John Tottleben of Jett Construction Co. declined to help Buckley remove the mold.

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