"XJDano" (xjdano)
05/19/2018 at 15:45 • Filed to: This old house
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"XJDano" (xjdano)
05/19/2018 at 15:45 • Filed to: This old house | 1
| 10 |
I’ll start with the asbestos seam tape on the duct work and then the actual duct work next. This is asbestos seam tape. It’s usually a high percentage but not necessarily dangerous if in good shape and left alone.
My parents house was built around the time after the St. Louis 1904 Worlds Fair. Stone foundation, concrete floor in basement. They bought it 1981 for $37,000. They are getting ready to sell it and it’s worth over $300,000. But it has old house problems. The asbestos is one, but I’ll take care of that next week. It’s my day job anyway, so a few hours on a holiday weekend won’t eat into my holiday plans.
Here is the kitchen and the addition and view of the backyard.
Everything above the basement was gutted and redone in phases, removing the old lath and plaster, installing new electrical work, and drywall. ( no pictures of that because my phone was dying) but the biggest problems are in the basement.
More ductwork.
I’ll
You’ll notice the dual furnaces. One was put in along with the addition. There is a problem I just noticed today.
The return for the main furnace was cut & capped. And the additional furnace put in its place, and attached to it. See crayon diagram below.
The photos above that show the hacked up holed up, is where they added on the extra duct to get a return air in the back room. The rear furnace was barely used in the winter because no one lived in there mainly.
My dad got as much asbestos off as he could and is having a hard time with the rest. The triangle holes were covered with the asbestos patch also. The other holes above the triangle was water lines running through the ducts.
My head was hurting after all this. Then go into the basement section of the addition and see what the paneling had been hiding all these years(my mom took 3 walls out in this area this week. ) CMU block walls that the dirt has pushed in over time. And a sunken floor.
They had bought another house and been moving 30+ years of stuff there over the last few months.
I’m not sure what they are going to do about these things, but I doubt any inspector would let these fly .
LOREM IPSUM
> XJDano
05/19/2018 at 15:57 |
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Well that escalated quickly.
Lucky for them you’re in the remediation business, because professional abatement costs a fortune. The rest, however... Ugh.
Any permits pulled for any of this work thus far?
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XJDano
> LOREM IPSUM
05/19/2018 at 16:02 |
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lol permits.
I hope that doesn’t bite them in the ass either.
The electrical work was hired out. So it was “professionally” done. As with plumbing. We did all the demo and drywall in the 90’s. (Taping & mud was hired out too)
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LOREM IPSUM
> XJDano
05/19/2018 at 16:10 |
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How ethical is everyone feeling?
No permits means you never opened it up and have absolutely no idea what’s behind there. Bury it. Bury it all. Caveat emptor.
Or, Mike Holmes it and lose many tens of thousands of dollars “doing it right.”
Either way, fuuuuuuuuch, that sucks.
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XJDano
> LOREM IPSUM
05/19/2018 at 16:25 |
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It’s been opened. Just never inspected and approved before slapping up drywall.
It’s a nice house in old time suburbia and on the edge of Hipsterville.
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LOREM IPSUM
> XJDano
05/19/2018 at 16:41 |
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If permits were never pulled, as far as the municipality is concerned, it’s never been opened. If they catch wind of all this after the fact they could conceivably pull the certificate of occupancy until you open it up again, at which point they will probably do their damnedist to call you out on every little thing the inspector dislikes. Of course every area is different, and not all of them are as aggressive in their enforcement, so ymmv.
...I’m not sure what the fine schedule is for asbestos abatement without proper precautions, but if it’s near hipsterville, I’d imagine they’re high. You probably know better than I do about all of that though.
Definitely a damned if you do, damned if you don’t type of situation.
Here’s to getting it sorted with minimal aggravation.
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XJDano
> LOREM IPSUM
05/19/2018 at 17:15 |
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Asbestos is unregulated in owner occupied single family dwellings. Someone could throw it in regular trash and not get fined.
I on the other hand would have a hard time getting away with nonsense like that (being that I’m trained and state licensed professional). I will be taking precautions not to contaminate the house, lay down a drop cloth & keep saturated with water or into a HEPA vacuum designed and approved for it.
Not everyone know what asbestos is so the regulations didn’t cover residential. It won’t kill you like electricity will.
Also to save money at the time the asbestos duct wrap going from basement to attic was left on and covered. It just needs to be noted in the sale documents. But that also may turn buyers away.
I know they fucked up. And they do too. But it’s all done. We just aren’t sure what’s going to happen.
Also...... not my problem. And they probably should have not gone out and bought another house before this one was on the market.
But my mom has her place in “the country” like she has wanted since the 1990s. Having 4 kids puts a hold on your dreams.
I’ll help them out, but they may not be buying a new car with the equity they think they have.
37 years of living accumulates and they had more stuff to move before they could get ready to sell the house.
They are inbetween a rock and hard place. It could go well, or really bad.
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LOREM IPSUM
> XJDano
05/19/2018 at 17:29 |
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Good that the regulations work in your favor there. Around here, everything gets poly’d, sealed, negative pressure’d, filtered, and they’re on top of disposal like none other, single family home or otherwise. Mesothelioma fears, and an overly “progressive” and “green” community here, I guess.
Hoping it all works out in their favor in the end.
shop-teacher
> XJDano
05/19/2018 at 18:18 |
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We looked at a house with block walls that had gotten pushed in like that. The epoxied strips of carbon fiber every few feet to reinforce it. It was actually kind of impressive.
Urambo Tauro
> XJDano
05/19/2018 at 18:22 |
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How minor of a deal is that seam tape, really? During the time that I worked with ACM, we didn’t do very many tape jobs, and I always assumed that it was a uniquely vulnerable application, since it was friable and tasked with holding up against moving air. Sure, you can encapsulate the outside, but what about the inside? Does the original adhesive help make that part less friable, so that the HVAC system isn’t spreading it throughout the building?
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
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LOREM IPSUM
> shop-teacher
05/19/2018 at 19:22 |
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And there you have it. Carbon fiber house band-aids. They really have thought of everything.