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Originally Posted by slandsman01
This is kind of a basement problem so I thought it would fit in here. My house was built in 1985. The previous owner finished off the basement themselves. There does appear to be a vapor, but when I removed the ceiling tiles I noticed the wiring for the lights were exposed. Plus, there is no ventilation in the basement. So, air is trapped. Needless to say, the carpet has a strong mold/musty smell. So, I am going to rip out all of the carpet this winter. If the smell or problem persist I am going to start tearing down the finished part of the basement. My question is how do I deal with the electrical outlet in the wall with regard to tearing the walls down? Plus, I will take any advice you have with regard to this little project.
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Well, I guess first I'm curious about what you mean by "the wiring is exposed"? There is no code requirement for conduit in a suspended ceiling, to the best of my knowledge. There certainly isn't in a 'regular' ceiling - you just need to have it stapled every so often to keep the wire where it belongs.
If you have mold, you probably have a problem with water infiltration. Ripping up your carpet is a good place to start looking for the telltale signs. You should be prepared to discover nasty problems with cracked foundations and stuff like that. I've never opened a wall that I didn't find something that cost me more money than I had planned for.
Last, if you don't know how to handle the electrical outlet, you should consider hiring an electrician. If you are comfortable doing it yourself however, you can do any of several different things. One option, if the box is on the end of a circuit, is to just trace the wire back to the last junction and disconnect and remove it. If it isn't at the end, you might consider (especially with a suspended ceiling) putting a junction box in above the ceiling and removing the outlet from the circuit. Finally, if you're going to be short of outlets, you might want to put in that junction box and drop a new line to a new outlet box in a different location.
Hopefully that's helpful. You should be aware that I am not in any way, shape or form a "professional". I've been ripping my own house apart and reasonably successfully re-configuring and re-building parts of it for the last four years, so I've learned a bit and I've got lots more to learn too.
Good luck!