How to check your home for asbestos (by yourself) before renovating

Homes built and/or renovated from 1930-1970 can contain asbestos materials.  Even though materials containing asbestos were not manufactured after the laws were updated in the 1970's, materials already produced and stockpiled were allowed to still be used in construction.  But why worry about the specific years of all the materials in your house?  Just test them and be 100% confident.

Asbestos can be in vinyl flooring (the tiles themselves) and/or the mastic used to glue them to the floor.  It can be used in the padding around hot pipes or as the insulation in attics.  It can also have been used in exterior siding, and mixed in paint and compound to create a textured look.  Honestly, it was a plentiful and cheap material, and possibly could have been mixed in and used anywhere in an old home.

Since we had a couple of ceilings and walls with texture/popcorn paint, we decided to get it tested before doing a project where we would scrape and sand it off the walls.  Since we would definitely be aerating it it makes perfect sense to just get it tested first.

If you don't want to hire a professional to come and test your house, the next best thing is to find a company you can send samples to for testing.

I have used this company before and I was very happy with the results:

https://www.slabinc.com/shop/asbestos/asbestos-test-kit/

They also have a combo asbestos/lead/mold testing kit which is very convenient.  If you are testing for asbestos, you likely have lead paint since it was used around the same time as asbestos in construction.  Best to get it tested all at once and save money on multiple test kits. 

When I sent samples away for testing, I sent a sample of vinyl tile I knew contained asbestos just to see what the results from the lab would say.  I knew the tile was asbestos tile based on pictures I matched online and from an asbestos removal company who tested it for me.  However, I was mainly worried about the mastic behind the tile, since that often contains asbestos as well and is more difficult to remove from flooring.  The remediation company didn't test the mastic since they treat it as thought it contains asbestos when removing it whether it tested positive or not.  

When you send samples away for testing, it is recommended to send several samples of the same material from different areas.  For example, when I was testing the vinyl tile and mastic, we sent in several samples from different areas of the floor.

The testing kit comes with instructions of how to collect a sample safely.  Mainly, you wear gloves, spray it with water before disturbing it, and you should also wear a mask that is rated for asbestos fibers.  Luckily for me, we had pieces of tile, paint and other materials that had already broken off that we could just collect and put in the bags.  We still used gloves/water/mask but didn't have to break off samples (and possibly create aerated fibers).

The asbestos kit looks like this:

Inside you will find a form to fill out.  You have to note where each sample was collected and then label the zip lock bags appropriately.

 

The samples in bag look like this:

When you purchase a test kit, you can select the turn around time for the testing.  They offer next-day, 1-day and five-day options.  

To get the results for your test, you will be given a log-in to their website.  From there you can look at the results.  One thing I really liked about this company is that they tested every layer of whatever we sent.  Below is an example of what the report looks like:

There was no extra fee for testing each layer of the sample. They have identified that the sample in the picture above does not contain any asbestos (see the highlighted yellow text above).  They have also identified that it does contain cellulose fiber and non-fibrous material.  Cellulose fiber is a construction material made from plant fibers and in not considered harmful for humans.  It is often used in insultation.

When you do have a sample that contains asbestos, the report looks like this:

I highlighted in yellow the results for the tile, which show it does have a small amount of asbestos chrysotile.  The mastic, which we had several samples tested, did not show as having any asbestos.  However, when we remediated the asbestos, we still had the mastic sealed in after the tile was removed.

I hope this post helps any who are hesitant to get their house tested.  The process is very smooth and does not take much time.  Also, no worries if your sample has several layers.  The testing company apparently will test all layers at no additional cost to you.

We did eventually get the asbestos tile in the basement remediated by a professional company.  That process will be described in a future post.

Complete Removal (rip-out), Expansion and Rebuild of Master Bath in a 1950's Cape Cod House

Our house is a Cape Cod house, so the bathrooms on the second floor are small and have sloped ceilings.  The master bedroom has an en suite bathroom, which in our area is an uncommon luxury.  In fact, most houses in our area only have 1 bathroom in the house--usually on the second floor.   So having a bathroom in the master bedroom, albeit small, is something we greatly appreciate.  Although 1950's construction was built to last forever (or ~70 years in our case), things have gone wrong.  For us, it was a leak in one of the pipes for this bathroom which we could not fix by going through the ceiling of the room below.  Additionally, we had mildew and peeling/chipping paint on the popcorn ceiling from poor ventilation (fan vents are not required in our area if the bathroom has a window so we bought this house without bathroom fan vents).  

We didn't just renovate the master bathroom.  We completely gutted it, changed where the fixtures were, and expanded it.  See the graphic below for a visual of how the layout changed and expanded.

The before pictures of the master bath are given below.  The bathroom door is awkwardly in the center of the bedroom wall.  This means large bedroom furniture cannot fit on either side of the bathroom door (i.e. bureau).  The bathroom door opens directly to the sink, which is right below a window.  This means that the mirror/medicine cabinet is not above the sink, but to the right of the sink (to use the mirror while using the sink means stepping to the side).

The shower is to the left of the door.  It has a sloped ceiling and lots of built up mildew on the popcorn ceiling.  If the ceiling wasn't textured, remediation of the mildew would be easy, but on a textured surface treating and repainting is very complicated (see above right photo).  The shower did have a nice custom glass door, but was also dark, small and foreboding (lower left photo).

To the right of the bathroom door was more peeling paint, mildew and sloped ceiling (top right photo).

On the right side of the skinny bathroom was the toilet (check out that vintage toilet!), mirror/medicine cabinet, light switches and radiator.

To renovate this bathroom, we started by completely ripping it out.  We hired people to rip out the two inch thick concrete on the walls, floors and ceiling.  They also removed the sink and toilet.  We paid for a dumpster to dump it all in.  It took two guys two weekends to rip out this bathroom, another bathroom we had downstairs, and remove other scrap wood we had in our basement and garage.  The total waste was about 6.5 tons.

The complete demolition is shown in the next two photos below.  The left part of the bathroom is shown first.  This is the side that had the built-in custom shower.

The photo below shows the right side of the bathroom.  That is the side that had the toilet, light switches and medicine cabinet.

The photo below shows the full dumpster.  It weighed about 6.5 tons, and had the concrete from two bathrooms and lots of scrap wood we had in the garage and basement thrown in.

Reconstruction of the bathroom included making it much larger.  The master bedroom had lots of space, so it really wasn't an issue to make the bathroom larger.  Also, the door was moved to be from the center of the wall to the right side.  This will allow a large piece of furniture to be placed on that wall now.

The photos below show the new frame of the larger bathroom and the position of the door now on the far right side of the wall.

When the construction was complete, the door on the right hand side of the wall opens to the toilet (see photos below).

The pedestal sink is now replaced with a double vanity.  The vanity sits against the wall towards the bedroom.  The shower is still against the same wall as before, but is much more open (see photo below).  The bathroom now has vanity lights above each sink.  Each vanity has a mirror and an outlet.  A ceiling fan was also installed, and it doubles as a light.  The bathroom now has all smooth walls without texture, which will be easy to maintain and update in the future.

The shower has a space behind it where the ceiling dips low.  This space can have shelves installed or can be used to hang additional towels (photo below right side of image).

This last photo shows the updated window.  Below the window we eventually put a wooden bench with a suede cushion.  The bench can be used while changing or to put clothes on while changing.

We hired a different contractor for the "deconstruction" and reconstruction of the bathroom.  The plumbing had to all be replaced, new electric outlets and lights run.  The radiator had to be moved to be under the window (not shown here).  In total the reconstruction part took about two weeks--but this was not the only project our contractor was working at the time.  Possibly it could have been done sooner if this was the only project.  This project was done during COVID lock down, so many materials were difficult to come by, this also impacted the timeline.

What does it mean to own a home?

 

I suppose I should entitle this post: What does it mean to me to own a home?

My thoughts about home ownership have evolved since when I first started this blog many years ago.  Back when we first bought the house we were so young, had so much energy and were amazed at this complicated but wonderful house we now owned.  

A lot of life happens in people's homes.  It is a place where some of your happiest memories are made, and it can be a place where you experience great suffering, which can come in the form of illnesses, and grief.

I think in the early years I didn't really understand what home ownership meant.  You cannot just live in a house.  You have to constantly repair, replace, clean, update and upkeep.  I know we were doing that a great deal in the beginning, but we had a few years when we were busy with having kids, and forgot about it for awhile.  In that timeframe several things went wrong with the house.  We had major plumbing issues and we had issues on the external part of the house and the property.  

The hardest part with having these issues was being unprepared for it .  We should have known it could and would one day happen.  We should have been upkeeping things such that they didn't completely break down.  I don't know if being better prepared is something I should have known to do.  I would like to think I am just 'normal.'

The one redeeming quality in all this, is that my story isn't over.  I am still here in this house, and I have learned from my mistakes and will do better next time.

So what does it mean to own a home?

It means:

• You need to plan for more than just paying mortgage, taxes and utilities.  You need to financially plan for repairs and updates as part of home ownership.

• Constant and continuous upkeep to avoid larger expenses and repairs later.

• Learning how to do many things yourself, and also knowing when to admit projects are beyond your skill, knowledge and comfort level.

• Learning how to make connections, get recommendations, hire contractors, get bids, and have others do work on and in your home.

• Learn from your mistakes.  They are not mistakes, they are learning opportunities.

My thoughts on asbestos in the home when you renovate yourself

 Asbestos--despite being carcinogenic to human life--would have otherwise been a very useful building material.  I read somewhere that the ancient Greeks or Romans had asbestos napkins which they would throw into the fire to clean (the internet is not clear on whether it was the Greeks or the Romans).  The napkins would not burn and would come out clean and white.  It may be surprising to us now, but even the ancient Greeks & Romans noticed that the slaves who worked with this material would prematurely sicken and die.  Why did it take modern society so long to do anything about it?

In most homes today you will find asbestos in tile flooring, external house siding, joint compound, attic insulation, and maybe even insulation around hot pipes.  Before we started any project in our house, we often did check and worry about possible asbestos.  Every time I had to check for asbestos I would wonder: what were the people who built with this stuff thinking?  Why did they do it?  

I have two possible answers.  First, I think they used the asbestos material because it was what was mass marketed and mass produced at the time.  Second, I don't think there was much thought put into what would happen when home owners would eventually have to remove or replace these materials.  If there is any evidence that they thought what they built would last forever, all I have to do is look at my 1950's bathrooms, with 2 inch thick cement on the walls and floor.  And for the most part, if you do not disturb the asbestos materials, they are generally not considered to be immediately hazardous.

The most common asbestos material that you will still find in public buildings today are the asbestos floor tiles.  I know my elementary school had them in the whole building.  They were routinely buffed and polished and were shiny and clean, but were still asbestos tiles.  I have spotted asbestos tiles in my children's elementary school, and well as in older churches.  Any building built between 1930 and 1970 could have these tiles.  Older buildings which were renovated during that time period could have it, and even buildings built later, since builders could use excess asbestos stock even if they couldn't buy it.

There is so much history to asbestos which the current crop of homebuyers just do not know about.  My father, who is of an older generation, remembers quite well building with this material, and it being very popular.  When I was researching asbestos flooring a few years ago, I came across a copy of an old asbestos floor advertisement booklet.  Needless to say, I was floored!  But Seriously, when I first saw this booklet, I just couldn't believe it.  This terrible material, responsible for so much human suffering, is right there, in an sales ad!  Maybe this is how MY kids will feel when they see a cigarette ad in some historic archive.  See the full booklet I am referencing here: https://inspectapedia.com/hazmat/Armstrong-Asphalt-Floor-Tile-Catalog-1955.PDF

I found that booklet from this website, which you can go to for more asbestos ads and information: https://inspectapedia.com/hazmat/Armstrong_Tile_List_1951-59.php

If you don't want to check out the link yourself, I have copied a snippet of the front cover below:

Check out that playroom!  Haven't you always dreamed of playing in asbestos land?  But, honestly, I am really not sure what the appeal of that floor tile was many years ago.  I am not sure I would have installed it no matter how cheap it was.  It really is just hideous-looking.  

The sad reality is, there was a huge building boom in the U.S. during the prime asbestos years.  Those houses and structures are still in use.  Many of those structures are being renovated to modern materials and tastes.  But will the people doing those renovations know to check for asbestos?

The first step to checking for asbestos is knowing that you could potentially have it.  If you could have asbestos in the area you are renovating, just stop.  Get it checked out.  You can call a professional asbestos inspector, or you can send samples away to a test company yourself.  Or, if you are very curious and want to test out how good the inspector is you can call an inspector AND send your own samples to a third party to check.  I have done that myself.

You may not be concerned about your health in regards to asbestos, but you should be concerned for others.  The material you disturb can get on your clothes, and in the air and can impact people other than just you.  Do you want to bring home asbestos on your clothes and then wash it with your children's clothing?

You may not be aware, but most places have strict rules for disposing of asbestos containing materials.  It is unlikely you will be able to dispose of it yourself in the appropriate way.  All the more reason to contact a professional company.

If you turned to the internet to help you find information that supports whatever it is you were going to do anyway...  well, then I recommend you stop reading this blog post, and look elsewhere.  You will not find any stories here about how 'it will all be okay' if you just remediate it yourself.  I know this is a 'do it yourself' blog, which means likely the audience is on a budget, but this is something you shouldn't do yourself.  Part of being a homeowner is shouldering the financial burden of upkeeping your house.  When you own an older home, you have the additional responsibility of diligently and properly updating it.

Running a new water line for a Fridge

My fridge, which I am quite positive is older than I am, was on its last leg for some time and needed to be replaced. Not only does it feel great to finally upgrade an appliance in the kitchen, but it also saves on our electricity bill. Most new refrigerators are rated as Energy Star which means they are generally 20% more efficient than minimum federal standards. Don’t forget to write off your purchase on qualified Energy Star products when filing your taxes as well as submitting for local rebates and credits from your local electrical company. Three ways to save or get paid to upgrade my fridge, how can I say no to that?

My old fridge was a standalone fridge with no special perks that many new fridges now come standard with. No, I opted out of getting a fridge with a TV and WiFi capability. Call me old fashion, but I believe my fridge should store food and other basic nourishments.

The new fridge that I purchased has a hookup for water and an ice maker. To maximize the use of my fridge, I am going to have to run a water line from a cold water source to my fridge. I purchased a water hook-up kit which included copper tubing, a saddle valve, and a compression union. I had to
also purchase a second compression union, which I will use to extend the line from the basement to the connection inside the fridge. 

First thing I did was find a convenient location behind where the new fridge would be located to punch a hole in the wall. This is going to be a entry point to the first floor for the cooper line that I would be running from the basement. This would have to be a place that is out of the way and would not be an inconvenience should I decide to later move the fridge to another location. We do not have a nook or built in fixture for a fridge so we have a little more flexibility to where we can place our refrigerator.  We decided to keep it in the same location and have no intent in moving to any other place in the kitchen, or at least in the near future.

Once I made the opening in the wall, I drilled a hole going into the basement. It wasn't easy as I could not drill straight down but was forced to operator my drill at an angle. But the advantage is that it provided me a general location of where to drill up from within the basement. Initially, I tried to start drilling from the basement but as you can see in the picture below, my measurements were slightly off. I thought I had made my measurements correctly but they were apparently 5 or so inches off.
 

As you already know, we do not have a finished basement so it makes it easier for me to find a water line that is the closest to the fridge with easy access for modification. If you have a finished basement, you have to be a little more creative in gaining access to the floor directly underneath your kitchen.

I than took my saddle valve and placed it over the existing copper water pipe. All I had to do was screw in either side and the device, which the pressure created by the tightening of the screws, punctured the existing water line without ever having to shut off the water supply to any other place in the house. Ensure you have the saddle value in the off position or you have a slight mess to clean up.

Take a compression union and connect the cooper tubing to the saddle valve. I kept a few feet of copper tubing and tied it at the connection point. Never hurts to have some slack for the flexibility of moving the water line should I need to for a future project.

I placed a plastic junction box in the hole that I made in the kitchen and fed the copper tubing through it from the basement. I placed a coaxial cable face plate over the copper tuning.

Follow the instructions of your refrigerator to make the appropriate connections to the fridge itself. Once the connections are made, take another compression union and connect the water hose to the copper tubing.

Go back to the and turn on the saddle valve to allow water to flow through the new junction you created. Keep an eye on all the connections to ensure there are no leaks or breaks in the tubing. Finally, I am now ready to get a glass and taste the fresh, cold and filtered water from my new fridge.

Renovating a Planting Bed, Summer Garden Projects #3

If you have already perused through Summer Garden Project #1 and Summer Garden Project #2, you will understand that this is the continued effort on our part in trying to reclaim the front of our house. I am just truly excited that I do not have to deal with removing Ivy in this project. My back still aches whenever I think about the Ivy Removal Initiative we did the year prior.

It's never fun to see the holistic task at hand. No matter what we do to try to tame this area, it just looks so disheveled. The area is on the side portion of the lawn that divides my property with my neighbors. I could not tabulate the total number of plants that were located on this small plot of land.

Time to get to work. My trusty tools and supplies consisted of a shovel, a spade, hand tiller (no I did not bother renting the motorized one for this project), plenty of garbage bags, top soil and mulch. The plants I wanted to remove have been there for years which required me to dig almost a foot and a half down in order to get to the bulb and the intricate root systems for each of these plants. Be sure to remove as much as you can, if not all of it, as they will be fighting for natural resources of the plants you are putting in and these old root systems may regrow and regain control of the area. I have no desire to redo this project. 

I do not know where I got the energy, but I was able to remove all the plant life in just a few short hours. I spent a good amount of time just turning the soil in order to remove any roots that I had missed and to also mix in the top soil that I purchased at the local home improvement store.

The remainder of the project is very similar to the later half of Summer Garden Project #1 and Summer Garden Project #2. Just remember to do your due diligence in the types of plants you are looking to plant. How much sunlight do the plants require and does the location meet those needs? Are the plants you are choosing to transplant in your yard rated for the area of the country you live in? If you are going to Home Depot or Lowes, they will generally carry plants that are ideal for the area of the country you reside in. It's the specialty garden centers that may bring in more exotic plants that may not be apt to you climate conditions. Just remember, if you are going with those other plants, they will require a significant effort on your part to ensure they can thrive in your lawn. 

As you can see, we are very simple people and thus our gardening vision reflects that. Granted these plants are in it's infancy and will grow to fill that plot of land, we chose to only plant 4 different species in this area. A far cry from it's previous condition, just a few short hours ago. We added a number of bags of mulch to help keep water in the soil and added the stone perimeter as we did in the previous project.

By removing all the erroneous plants, we now have given the appearance of a much larger front yard, or so I tell myself to believe. Three out of four sections of the front of the house has been completed. Now to take on the next Garden Project.

Front Lawn Ivy Removal Initiative, Summer Garden Project #2

The next work we did was at the end of the front walkway which meets the curb of our sidewalk where there was an overgrowth of ivy. The picture really shows the distinct contrast between the crowded bushes on the left of the house and the right side of the house which is a result of the Summer Garden Project #1. 

To continue this minimalist garden theme, we wanted to remove the eye sore from the front of the house. The ivy took over a large portion of the front lawn, covers the steps onto our walkway and was an overall distraction to the aesthetics of how we want the garden to look like. 

Where are the steps to our house?

A closer look at the enemy…

The other side of the walkway.

This has to be least enjoyable garden project thus far. Ivy is a resilient plant which has an extensive underground root system. Here is a link to a little bit more information about Ivy (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/mg358).

Some success! This is what the Ivy looks like under the leaves after pulling it out of the ground.

My tears of joy quickly becomes tears of sorrow when I realize all that hard work only resulted in less than a square foot of ivy removal. When removing ivy, ensure that you use the big black contractor bag or other durable disposal bags. Ivy can grow almost anyway, by placing it in the traditional brown lawn bags may allow the ivy to rip through the bag and expose the ivy to untainted part of the lawn.

It took the woman of the household about 4 hours to pull this amount of ivy from our lawn. The man of the household took about 30 minutes to pull out the other half of the ivy to include removing the extensive root network that goes in about a foot into the ground. 

No ivy or is there?

Pulling the ivy is not the only thing that must be done. Dealing with the strange bugs, dead and rotted ivy pieces, leaves from years past and hidden garbage are just some of the joys of this project. The root removal requires a little bit more ingenuity and a reason to make a trip to Home Depot!

This helped cut hours of back breaking work into about 2 minutes of fun with the Honda F220AN 130 RPM gas operated tiller! (http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/products/modeldetail.aspx?page=modeldetail&section=P2TL&modelname=F220AN&modelid=F220AN) This $900 tool cost only about $45 for an all-day rental.

Before the fun can begin, we need to outline the work area to till in order to aerate the soil and remove the deeply embedded ivy roots. I used a power cord as this can be easily adjusted to outline curves and frame the area to be worked on. 

  
 Another reason we used the orange power cord is because we had a can of orange spray-paint to outline the work area. 

Don't forget to remove the wire before tilling...

Time to have some fun. By far, the best part of the project. Just remember to stay within the lines.

Now that the fun is over, now it’s time to go back to work. We cut into the ground about 3 inches around the border of the area. The depth was based upon the stone we were going to lay around the area. We evened out the soil and planted the first plant just to center our planned layout. Then we laid out weed guard, which is a black cloth-type material that you lay over the soil to prevent weed from growing out through the mulch but is permeable to water allowing water to get through to the root system of the plants. I used brick to hold down the weed guard as a tucked the cloth into the corners between the soil and the walkway.

This is where the learning curve came into play. The first garden area, we followed the directions and suggestions made by garden books, forums and blogs. We laid out the weed guard, marked with our orange spray-paint where the plants were to be placed, cut through the weed-guard and dig up the ground in order to plant the perennials and annuals. You will see how difficult that task can be when you feel the material that the weed-guard is comprised of and trying to do the previously mentioned steps. It was painfully annoying to cut a small hole, working with a hand trowel through the relatively small hole to dig up the dirt and place the plants in the area. 

For the second half of the project, we opted to excavate the holes prior to laying the weed-guard down. Once the guard-guard was done, it was pretty easy to feel for the holes in order to cut the respective slits in the weed-guard in order to plant. 

As for the aesthetic work on the garden, we used a granite-esque looking stone that was 4 inch by 8 inch. It is perfect for outdoor projects for creating walkway, garden patio or decorative borders, as we have opted for. I placed the stones against the cut in the ground and used a rubber mallet to straighten and level the stones. Using loose dirt, I poured it between the cut and the stone to straighten the stones and ensure it remained flush against the cut. 

Once the border was completely laid out, I covered the area with regular mulch.

Closer view of the right patch.

Closer view of the left patch.

Panoramic view of Summer Garden Project #1 and #2. Summer Garden Project #3 will be to tackle the last of the older bushes seen in the left side of the house.

Before even thinking about Summer Garden Project #3, I’m just going to stand here in the middle of the street and enjoy the fact that Summer Garden Project #2 is completed!