24H Mold Inspection of Escondido

Investors formed the Escondido Land and Town Company in 1886 to buy and subdivide the ranch lands, the city incorporated on October 8, 1888, and the well-off settlers who arrived in those first years built houses that still stand. The city created the Old Escondido Historic District in 1989 to protect them. These Victorians, Craftsman bungalows, and early revival homes mostly stand on raised wood foundations over crawl spaces without vapor barriers, with original or early-replacement galvanized plumbing and a century of re-roofs and additions. Damp crawl space soil, subfloor growth under bathrooms, and leaks where additions meet the original house define the risk here.

Downtown grew around Grand Avenue and the park that became the home of Grape Day, the September celebration former mayor Sig Steiner proposed after a report on the sweetness of local grapes; Grape Day Park, the city's oldest, has been the center of community events since the early 1930s. The blocks around it hold Escondido's oldest commercial buildings — masonry storefronts with flat roofs behind parapets, apartments and offices above shops — alongside older homes and apartment buildings. Clogged roof drains, failing parapet flashing, and aging supply plumbing are the recurring moisture sources, and in mixed-use buildings a leak upstairs becomes the shop's problem below.

Escondido Creek runs 26 miles from its headwaters in Bear Valley above Lake Wohlford to San Elijo Lagoon at the coast, and for about seven miles through the city it is confined within concrete embankments. That channel carries a large watershed straight through the middle of town, and the older apartments, homes, and commercial buildings on the low ground beside it are where storm water collects fastest when streets and drains fall behind. Water reaches these properties at the slab edge, under garage and patio doors, and into crawl spaces, then wicks into wall bottoms and framing that dry far more slowly than the warm inland air suggests.

Avocados became the area's largest local crop after growers such as Henry Avocado, founded here in 1925, began planting in the hills, and groves still operate across the East Valley. Many houses on that land are older ranch homes and farmhouses on sloped lots beneath mature trees, some on raised foundations and many enlarged over the decades. Grove and landscape irrigation keep soil damp against the house, slopes direct runoff toward foundations, roots invade sewer and drain lines, and leaf litter clogs gutters and valleys. Deep shade keeps roofs and exterior walls from drying after rain, and converted outbuildings on unsealed slabs add their own moisture.

The north and east edges of the city run up into open country: the present Wohlford Dam was completed in 1924 and holds back up to 7,100 acre-feet, and in 1996 the city voted to buy the 3,058-acre Daley Ranch as a permanent habitat preserve beside Dixon Lake. Homes along this edge sit on hillside lots facing open brush, and in October 2007 the Witch Creek Fire reached Escondido within about eight hours of starting east of Ramona. Hillside properties here take runoff against uphill walls and retaining walls, burned slopes above them shed water faster after a fire, and firefighting water can soak attics and walls in homes that look untouched.