Lead Clearance Test--Surprising and Scary

We bought this place from the City of Covington and by and large they've been great to work with, with some individuals going far and above the call of duty on our behalf. Sometimes, there are annoying requirements. One of which was the requirement to test for lead paint. Now, in theory, this is a great policy. DIY renovators are exposed to WAY too much lead.

The thing is, I took my lead course and I'm a certifiable lead-safe worker. I know there was going to be lead paint and I took steps to minimize my exposure. But I still had to cough up a pretty penny to get the place tested. That's money that could have gone to pay for some of the thousands of $'s of lumber that went up on these walls. Oh well...

Anyway, since there was an extensive lead test done, there has to be a "lead clearance test" done to demonstrate that lead remediation done or at least good cleaning practices were used during and after the project. Now, since the walls were furred, foamed, and drywalled, we didn't need to worry about them. And, since the interior walls, and the lead paint encrusted bead board stair enclosures were removed and replaced, we didn't need to worry about them. AND, since the floors had been covered with OSB, and swept and HEPA Vacuumed (both before and after OSB went down) several times, and since all the windows and doors had been replaced, we didn't need to worry about them. We don't even need a clearance test, Right?

Wrong. A lead clearance test is required even though there isn't any lead painted surfaces left in the house and haven't been for months and months and that all surfaces are now new. No certificate of occupancy will be issued without one. No COO, no refi. No COO, no CARD loan/grant.

So, a lead clearance test was scheduled.

Here's where it gets interesting. Our tester shows up and walks through the house. She notes that we've not put down carpet. She asked us if we had cleaned the window sills (no, they are new lumber and just painted and actually not really "sills"). She asked us if we had cleaned the window troughs (yes, yesterday). She looked at us and said, "You don't want me to test today"

Huh?!?

Everything is NEW. There's no lead here! Not so fast. "This is an old neighborhood and our testing is very sensitive." There's a good chance that there's enough lead present to fail a test. She advised getting carpet down. Make sure every sill or subsill has been painted. Clean all window troughs and sills immediately before the scheduled test.

Fine. Whatever. Rush job on the carpet. We were lucky to find some carpet we really rather liked that could be installed fast. That of course blew the budget there by about $2k.



But we got it in. The outfit was McCall's and they were pretty darned good and professional. I just wish we'd had time to shop this the way we wanted to.

So, we got the carpet in and we HEPA vacuumed the entire place, cleaned sills and troughs per instruction, and had the lead test done. Basically, they test the floors and sills of the rooms that are likely to have children playing or eating in them.

Now, we passed but here's the kicker, one of our sills (brand new, where we replaced the door with a window) and one of our troughs were at about 35% of maximum tolerance. That's on a new sill and a new window trough that been cleaned within 2 hours of the test! There should be NO lead paint. The thing is, on a windy day, you're going to get lead dust from your neighbors. Plan on it. If you want to pass a lead clearance test, make sure you clean right before the scheduled test. Also, when you wipe your troughs, wipe the bottom of the sash well too.

Also, as a matter of course, when you open windows in the spring and summer, give the troughs and sills a quick suck with the HEPA vac and wipe them down with a good detergent. Also, encourage your neighbors to paint any deteriorated windows or exterior wall or trim to stabilize them.

Next up, Making the Ikea Kitchen!

Catching Up: Tile

A lot has happened and we're playing catch up.

The DW is a tiling queen. That's all there is to it. I was good for prepping for grout and cleaning up afterward.

This first picture is the guest bath floor. What you can't see is that the room is not particularly square.




What to do about it? Well, don't use these:



They give one a false sense of "squareness" and aren't really very necessary for the floor. In fact, what one can do is gently adjust for "non-square" rooms by squeezing or stretching the gaps between the tiles ever so slightly. Over 8 tiles, 1/8" adds up (to an inch).

Speaking of "not square"...one of the bathrooms is pretty badly wracked. That leaves us with a dilemma; how do we line up the tiles so that they look good and so that they don't highlight our wall problems? Well, DW was all over it. As you can see in the pic below, she lined the tiles up on the corner of the wall that you see as you come in. There's a long line of tile from door to window that really needs to be straight and also dead ahead of you is the cross angle. Fortunately, those two walls intersect in a nearly perfect square.






So far, so good. Looks pretty straight and square in and out and left to right. Most other problems will be behind the door or under trim.











But...there's a problem. If those important lines are maintained square and straight as they were, well, when the tiles get back to the bathtub, there's 1 1/2" of extra space at one end of the tub. See below.












So, how does DW address that? Marble trim legerdemain. She cuts a section out the tiles to allow for the special "trim", fiddle with the sizes of the joints to allow for that 1 1/2" gap, and create an optical illusion of the tile getting smaller as it extends away along the tub.














As you can see, there's hardly a noticeable sign of that unsightly uneven gap.
















Absolutely amazing.


This of course means that there's going to have to be more of that marble trim utilized in the tub surround, but that's another story.

Green? Long-term vs. Up-front Costs

Some might take a look at our building choices (light metal roof, super efficient windows, super efficient HVAC, spray foam) and think we've gone "green". The thing is, I don't believe in fashionable environmentalism. I just don't. Talking "Green" makes me green, if you know what I mean. That doesn't mean that I don't care. I've been an outdoorsman for my entire life. I firmly believe in responsible stewardship of our land, air, and water. I even more firmly believe in EFFICIENCY that is consistent with such. Economic reality should dovetail into environmentalism. If it doesn't then it's just a fashionable bit of onanism. I'm not sure most folks get that.

Anyway, environmentalism should make sense. You have to look both short and long term at both costs and benefits.

Short term and long term costs for our metal roof were a no-brainer. It won on the upfront without even considering that it would outlive us, let alone the cooling costs. Windows were a no-brainer because added efficiency could be had at trivial additional cost, and no matter how we sliced it, we had to replace the windows (the calculus becomes much more difficult when one has a passel of solid old windows and the time to work on them, as well-repaired old windows with interior storms can be pretty darned efficient).

I did have to do the up-front vs. monthly/lifetime cost calculation when I was figuring the costs of insulation. I figured that we could DIY bats or blown-in insulation if we framed in all of my brick walls. This would preclude insulating the stairwell wall, of course, because we couldn't give up that space without rebuilding the stairs. The cost of that is ~100 square feet of floor space (and elbow room), and probably $2500 in materials, perhaps quite a bit more. Plus our time, which was short. The efficacy of 3.5" of bat insulation against the brick walls is debatable (some say R-11), but it's got problems in our application. The stair wells are going to be major heat sinks, for one and that means that the office and living room would be cold. Further, if insulation gets moist or if there's a gap allowing air to get in there, the true R-value drops significantly. There's a chance of both in our old brick house. I've seen a lot of water find a way into our walls over the past year. It could happen again on smaller scale. So, we're not going to be able to make the place fully insulated with pink stuff regardless, and if we did, there's a good chance we'd get less than the hoped for result.

Now, a lot of folks in these 150 year old houses don't insulate the walls, and just leave them plaster on brick with an air gap and more brick. They save the floor space in these narrow homes at the expense of comfort and gas and electric. With good attic insulation and storms and plastic it's bearable and almost affordable.

If we did spray foam, we'd get far superior performance for the life of the home (never any settling, never get wet, never allow a draft through, and provide R7 per inch (that's R-11 on the walls) AND eliminate the need for venting in the attic), and save ~100 square feet of needed floor space/elbow room. Most importantly, we could insulate the stair wells, making a huge comfort difference. I figured that I could fur the walls out 1.5" and get "real world" equivalence of bats in between studs without ever having to worry about the normal failure of bats in our application. In the rafters of the attic living space, I'm confident that the 7-8" of foam that we sprayed is going to outperform any other insulation. Forever.

Now, the total cost of the foam was less than $6k and we didn't have to do any of the labor nor take any of the risks (foam is fairly expensive if you screw up the application). That's perhaps $1.5k more than DIY foam (assuming no screw-ups), $2.5k more than DIY bats and $4.5k more than leaving the walls and just insulating the attic. I know that I'll save at LEAST $100 per month over the no wall insulation application and probably $50/month over the bat solution. Plus I'll keep that elbow room. We'll also get into the house sooner, saving on rent.

I figure that the cost differential alone is conservatively made up in less (perhaps a lot less) than 5 years, assuming utility rates stay where they are. That's a pretty short pay back and it makes good sense when I get to wait for it in total comfort. By comfort, I do mean serious comfort. In real life, when we set the furnace at 60 degrees, it's about as comfortable as our current place set at 70 degrees. When we turn it down, the third floor stays toasty for hours and hours. That's the outcome I was looking for and the savings justify the cost, irrespective of the luxurious comfort.

Side Door Replacement

That's the kitchen door. You can see the refinished floors a bit in there, too. We've put it off far too long already. We need to replace it.

The thing is, it's not standard. It's a 34"x85" door, in a mortised frame in brick. Doors come in standard 82" high and 32" or 36" widths. At 32", you can't get furniture in. At 36", you can't get a pre hung door in, intact. Then we have to deal with the transom, too. This will be our main door, so we don't want to have it look too kludgy.

So, there's only one solution that we could come up with. Order a 34" slab, with glass (for light, which we need), and build an entire new frame.

This meant that we had to sawzall out the door AND transom. Then we needed to rout the 2x12 framing material to accept the door and transom, and then we needed to chisel out for the hinge plates, and then install stop and weatherstripping.

THEN, we had to make sure our measurements of the transom were correct and order double paned glass. Then hang the door and install a threshold. Then we cover the transom hole and wait for glass.

We're still shy many of our pictures so we don't have the final, but the transom also looks pretty good.