Straban Township, East of Town: New Construction, Older Homes and Moisture

By John Calhoun, owner of Mold Remediation Gettysburg PA · Updated October 20, 2026

Straban Township borders the east side of the borough and runs out toward Hunterstown, the small village on Route 394 with its own National Register historic district. Part of Lake Heritage is in Straban too. It’s a township of owner-occupied single-family homes, and the Census shows a wide spread of house ages, from homes built before 1940 to houses that are barely finished.

Straban Township by the numbers

These are U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey estimates for 2020 to 2024.

One caution: the “2020 or later” figure has a wide margin of error (plus or minus 103), so read it as “a lot of recent building,” not an exact count. Every nearby township is compared on the Gettysburg housing data page.

The first year in a new house

New houses start life wet. Poured concrete, framing lumber, drywall compound and paint all give off moisture as they cure and dry. In the first year or so, that water has to go somewhere, and in a tight new house it often ends up as condensation on windows or a damp smell in the basement.

Then there’s the equipment. A lot of new houses are sealed very tight and fitted with heating and cooling that’s bigger than the house needs. An oversized air conditioner short-cycles and leaves moisture in the air, and if the builder never balanced the system and the ventilation to the house, it stays damp past that first year. If your house is new construction, ask the builder for the blower door test result; it’s the first thing I want to see. Why brand-new houses get damp has the details.

The drying-out part doesn’t mean the house is defective. It means it needs air moving and moisture controlled while it dries out: bath and kitchen fans run, a dehumidifier in the basement set to keep humidity in check, and an eye on window sills and closet corners during the first winter. If growth does show up, find out whether it’s a construction leak or plain condensation before anyone treats it, because the fixes are different. And if the house is under a builder’s warranty, report it to the builder in writing first.

Older homes

About 1 in 8 homes in Straban predates 1940. Older houses get wet the old-fashioned way: through the foundation, around old cellar windows and bulkhead doors, through tired roofs and chimneys. White crust on a basement wall is often mineral salt, not mold, and telling them apart takes about a minute; efflorescence vs. mold shows how.

For basements that stay damp no matter what, the right dehumidifier matters more than people think. Sizing a dehumidifier covers that.

Oil, propane and wood heat

Straban heats differently from town. Only about 23% of homes use utility gas, while roughly 23% burn fuel oil, 20% use propane and about 7% heat with wood, by the Census count. None of that causes mold by itself. But a portable propane or kerosene heater without an outside vent adds water vapor to the room as it burns. If one room in the house is always damp, ask what’s heating it.

Mobile homes

Mobile homes make up about 1 in 15 homes in the township. The trouble spots are under the floor: leaks that soak the underbelly insulation, skirting that traps damp air over wet ground, and soft floors near the bathroom. I like these jobs; they’re usually quicker than a house. Mold under a mobile home or trailer has the full checklist.

Two very different houses, one rule

Whether your house went up in 1925 or 2023, mold is a water problem first, and the moisture meter comes out before anything else. That’s how John Calhoun approaches every job; the overview of mold remediation in Gettysburg, PA and the list of mold services explain the rest.