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BigFactory posted:That’s definitely a close approximation of a cassette you use for air sampling. It’s not a professional pump but if it’s calibrated it should work. I would question how re-usable it is, but since you’re not trying to meet worker protection standards maybe it’s ok if it’s out of calibration in 6 months. No direct reason to expect anything. It's an older house (1982), it's tucked away in some trees and very moist everywhere. It's been renovated, but the POs were definitely the "cover up" type. Humidity is sitting at around 65% inside and it even got up to 70% the other day. That combined with a recent leak (and some, contained, mold associated with it) and a very very old HVAC just had me wanting to test it. Especially with two young kids I've just gotten a bit paranoid about making sure they're in clean environment.
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Nov 8, 2022 00:18
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BonoMan posted:No direct reason to expect anything. It's an older house (1982), it's tucked away in some trees and very moist everywhere. It's been renovated, but the POs were definitely the "cover up" type. Humidity is sitting at around 65% inside and it even got up to 70% the other day. That combined with a recent leak (and some, contained, mold associated with it) and a very very old HVAC just had me wanting to test it. Especially with two young kids I've just gotten a bit paranoid about making sure they're in clean environment. What would you do if mold turned up in the air sample? It probably will to some degree or another. How much is too much? Could you get a couple dehumidifiers and some hepa filtered air purifiers and call it a day? Mold remediation gets to be a big deal real fast if it’s not managed with some amount of finesse. For instance, if your old HVAC system is part of the problem, part of the solution might be to replace it. Are you willing to go down that road?
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Nov 8, 2022 00:25
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A Jupiter posted:edit: oh my god I was trying to quote this in the OSHA thread and i posted here goddamnit. Haha, you gonna make em jealous with my foundation that actually supports the house at multiple points
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Nov 8, 2022 00:29
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BonoMan posted:No direct reason to expect anything. It's an older house (1982), it's tucked away in some trees and very moist everywhere. It's been renovated, but the POs were definitely the "cover up" type. Humidity is sitting at around 65% inside and it even got up to 70% the other day. That combined with a recent leak (and some, contained, mold associated with it) and a very very old HVAC just had me wanting to test it. Especially with two young kids I've just gotten a bit paranoid about making sure they're in clean environment. If you deal with the humidity, you won't have a problem with mold. Outside of a direct leak, keeping relative humidity below 60% will definitely help prevent the mold from growing. Any mold test you do is going to come back with "yes, there are mold spores"... because they're everywhere. You'd be better off spending the money on a whole home dehumidifier then doing anything with mold testing. (If you do go the whole home route, get a fresh air intake added as part of it.
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Nov 8, 2022 01:02
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Motronic posted:Mold is definitely a new-ish boogeyman. People have been going nuts over it for while now and it's getting to feel like a lot of it is nonsense spouted to sell tests and magical spray on products. You are singing from my hymnbook. I have been dealing with the mold issue in a professional capacity for most of my career. I remember how it was before, and the absolutely disgusting feeding-frenzy that cropped up in the mid-1990s. The entire arc of the mold-remediation scam smacks hard of pyramid schemes & prosperity gospel. It helped make Balfor a household name. Just oceans of cash. It got so bad so fast that policies were rewritten to exclude mold, then then maybe offer an endorsement to cover it up to a limit of $5K or $10K if the mold formation stems from a covered loss and if the spread meets the basic threshold of the New York City / IICRC guidelines (the national standard: a minimum of ten square feet) The issue is not the mold, as much as it is the human body's response to it. In a tiny percentage of people, they have allergic reactions to certain types of molds as well as spore densities, and that tiny minority who got really sick were signal-boosted to the moon by the burgeoning remediation industry. It's why we get these NIOSH statements, because as far as the general population goes, spore types & densities don't mean a fart in a hurricane; you expose a normal pulmonary system to enough airborne particulate matter - irrespective of plant, animal or mineral - you're gonna get a response. The only death tied to mold involved very young kids playing in a basement in a tenement in Chicago that had a chronic issue with busted sewer lines so the kids were spending a great deal of time running around in the equivalent of an open sewer in a mediaeval city. One kid got some super-weird rare mold that only thrives in raw sewage down his airway & that triggered a toxic response & his systems shut down. It has not recurred anywhere as far as I know. BigFactory posted:What would you do if mold turned up in the air sample? It probably will to some degree or another. How much is too much? ... Testing for mold means also testing outside to get the ambient mold levels for comparison. Mold is everywhere. You can maybe escape it in a clean room or similar artificially-created hermetic environment, but the best you can hope to do is knock it down. Like fire, mold propagation requires three legs: humidity, temperature, and (absence of) light/UV. Take any one of those away & propagation collapses. BonoMan posted:...Especially with two young kids I've just gotten a bit paranoid about making sure they're in clean environment. If you have any kids, let alone more than one, there is no such thing as a 'clean environment.'  "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" is especially true in kids. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Nov 8, 2022 |
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Nov 8, 2022 02:39
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PainterofCrap posted:
Ha you know what I mean. My kids are in daycare/school so I def appreciate building their immune systems. I just meant more of a general sense of I feel a duty to provide the best home I can. But all points taken. And that's why I was asking here. Less of feeling an immediate danger or anything and more of just part of a house wide system check as we're settling in.
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Nov 8, 2022 03:45
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BonoMan posted:No direct reason to expect anything. It's an older house (1982), it's tucked away in some trees and very moist everywhere. It's been renovated, but the POs were definitely the "cover up" type. Humidity is sitting at around 65% inside and it even got up to 70% the other day. That combined with a recent leak (and some, contained, mold associated with it) and a very very old HVAC just had me wanting to test it. Especially with two young kids I've just gotten a bit paranoid about making sure they're in clean environment. Moisture problem? I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about 
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Nov 8, 2022 04:12
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The more I try to make sense of the spatial relationships in that picture the more insane I go.
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Nov 8, 2022 04:20
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Groverhaus of Leaves
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Nov 8, 2022 04:45
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Vim Fuego posted:Moisture problem? I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about This is the sunken tub evolved 1000 years
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Nov 8, 2022 04:47
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doom bathroom --> quake bedroom
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Nov 8, 2022 04:49
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BonoMan posted:Yeah this is my wife's view. She's just like "I dunno... I always grew up with it. I constantly had to bleach my mom's walls." To echo at least one other poster I would put some HEPA filter units in your house. If you want to go on the cheaper end you could simply build some CR cubes (https://cleanaircrew.org/box-fan-filters/) to see if filtering the air cleans up your kids snotty noses. Two years ago due to fires and smoke I bought this indoor air quality monitor - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P7FV16F It's not going to do anything about detecting mold of course but it can show you if your issue is particles (pollen, smoke, dust) and also you can see how much additional air filtering inside your home reduces the particles in the air.
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Nov 8, 2022 05:28
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Motronic posted:Mold is definitely a new-ish boogeyman. People have been going nuts over it for while now and it's getting to feel like a lot of it is nonsense spouted to sell tests and magical spray on products. Yeah I really can't help but feel those kits like the one posted on this page are basically stealing money from people with mental health issues in 90% of cases. e: I think about the goon who thought his headaches were caused by his hood not being airtight on his car when I see that stuff I guess (if you're reading this I hope you're doing well and not trying to pick on you). It just seems a little predatory, if the companies selling these products cared about people's health I would hope to see them recommending a professional evaluation on their websites, but I'm guessing they don't have that. VelociBacon fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Nov 8, 2022 |
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Nov 8, 2022 05:31
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Vim Fuego posted:Moisture problem? I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about There was an interview with the architect where he described the water intrusion from his roof peeling his paint into a "pleasant patina" lol twenty million dollars
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Nov 8, 2022 05:39
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This photo helps me understand why conservatorships exist.
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Nov 8, 2022 06:47
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Anybody have hardwood floors in their kitchen? I've got a kitchen reno planned for 2023 and am thinking about my flooring options and am considering extending the existing red oak flooring from the dining room into the kitchen. I'm just interested in hearing thoughts about this from anybody with hardwood in their kitchen now: like it? Hate it? Tips and tricks? I had previously been considering LVP but I really just don't like how it looks, tile I'm just concerned about dropping and breaking things (the thing I dropped, or the tile), that leaves me with ???? other choices. It's a very small space, about 72sqft, that is currently covered in vinyl stick on tile over underlayment which is itself covering something with asbestos. I'm going to get it all ripped out and start fresh. I've also got one step down to an entryway from the kitchen that I need to figure out flooring options for. Wouldn't do wood since it will see a lot of tracked in water/dirt/snow. Tile or rubber maybe?
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Nov 8, 2022 15:04
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Sirotan posted:Anybody have hardwood floors in their kitchen? I've got a kitchen reno planned for 2023 and am thinking about my flooring options and am considering extending the existing red oak flooring from the dining room into the kitchen. I'm just interested in hearing thoughts about this from anybody with hardwood in their kitchen now: like it? Hate it? Tips and tricks? I had wood flooring in the kitchen in my previous house and i would STRONGLY suggest NOT doing it. The dishwasher leaked only a few drops overnight and damaged the floor right in front of it which was completely visible. it looked horrible. After that we were always on patrol, almost obsessively, to make sure there was never any accidental spillage of liquid on the floor. Obviously since this is a kitchen, you will get some type of liquid on the floor without even knowing. Right now in my current house we have vinyl tiles in the kitchen. They aren't the greatest looking but they were installed by the previous owner 8ish years ago. I have been casually looking online and it appears you can get much nicer looking vinyl tiles now. So if I were you, I'd give a harder look into that.
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Nov 8, 2022 16:28
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My in-laws have had hardwood in their kitchen for 30 years and my parents for 20 without issue.
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Nov 8, 2022 17:03
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Yeah, leaky dishwasher story sounds like exceptionally cheap hardwood or more likely fake hardwood/engineered hardwood/sawdust with inkjet printed woodgrain on it.
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Nov 8, 2022 17:09
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My house has hardwood flooring in the kitchen and it's been fine. Sometimes I'll spill some water and I just kind of smear it out with my foot and let it evaporate, and I haven't had any trouble.
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Nov 8, 2022 17:49
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devicenull posted:If you deal with the humidity, you won't have a problem with mold. Outside of a direct leak, keeping relative humidity below 60% will definitely help prevent the mold from growing. *Chukles in Florida Man.* Much like the cockroaches and ants, the mold lives here too. You do what you can to keep it to a dull roar, but you’re never, ever getting rid of it completely.
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Nov 8, 2022 18:03
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Motronic posted:Yeah, leaky dishwasher story sounds like exceptionally cheap hardwood or more likely fake hardwood/engineered hardwood/sawdust with inkjet printed woodgrain on it. seeing as i had the hardwood floor installed during a major renovation in 2013, i can assure you it was actually hardwood. It damaged the wood in about 3 spots roughly the size of a half dollar, quarter and a dime. Some Guy From NY fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Nov 8, 2022 |
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Nov 8, 2022 20:10
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Some Guy From NY posted:seeing as i had the hardwood floor installed during a major renovation in 2013, i can assure you it was actually hardwood. That's a shame. It's not what happens with quality hardwood that's been properly finished, so I wouldn't take your single data point as how this works.
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Nov 8, 2022 20:18
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can anyone tell just by looking if this beam is load bearing? i'm guessing not because a) there's no support directly underneath, just to the sides, b) the 2x4s (are only 2x4) and aren't on their edges, c) the bottom 2x4 is nailed into the top plate of the adjoining wall, not resting on top of it, and d) there's additional roof support in the attic above this room that isn't present anywhere else in the house.     i thiiiinnnkkkkk in a previous life that there was partition wall here separating a dining room and kitchen that the previous owners took out but left the top plate in because??? isnt that right fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Nov 8, 2022 |
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Nov 8, 2022 22:01
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It shouldn't be, but I'm just some guy on the internet.
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Nov 8, 2022 22:13
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My impression is that the wall you've exposed is load bearing, and that 'beam' is not. The question is really what way do your roof trusses run - if that beam is parallel with the roof trusses, it's unlikely to be load bearing. If it's perpendicular to the trusses, it's probably load bearing. I'm not a structural engineer though!
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Nov 9, 2022 00:46
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Motronic posted:That's a shame. It's not what happens with quality hardwood that's been properly finished, so I wouldn't take your single data point as how this works. Could be some chemicals in the detergent that reacted with the finish. I would assume the floors would be finished in polyurethene, and that poly would be resistant to detergents, but maybe they were finished with wax or shellac.
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Nov 9, 2022 03:04
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SkunkDuster posted:Could be some chemicals in the detergent that reacted with the finish. I would assume the floors would be finished in polyurethene, and that poly would be resistant to detergents, but maybe they were finished with wax or shellac. Floors installed in 2013 were not finished with wax or shellac.
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Nov 9, 2022 03:08
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I have hardwood kitchen floors and had had them in several houses. Never had a problem with water. Spills evaporate. Bigger issue is dropping pots or other heavy stuff that leaves a dent.
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Nov 9, 2022 03:17
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My grandparents have old high-quality hardwood floors. The couple boards in front of the dishwasher got hosed from an ongoing intermittent leak and ended up needing replacement. Iirc there was also something going on under their fridge from ice cubes a kid (not me!!) kicked there every day or two. I love hardwood, have only ever lived in 100-year-old houses with hardwood everywhere, but it's not invincible
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Nov 9, 2022 03:51
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i like nice words
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SkunkDuster posted:Could be some chemicals in the detergent that reacted with the finish. I would assume the floors would be finished in polyurethene, and that poly would be resistant to detergents, but maybe they were finished with wax or shellac. Motronic posted:Floors installed in 2013 were not finished with wax or shellac. They were finished with a Minwax oil stain (forgot which color) with a satin clear coat.
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Nov 9, 2022 04:48
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We have scratch and spill resistant LVP in the kitchen it's fine
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Nov 9, 2022 10:44
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Real hardwood with a proper finish is one of your better options for kitchen flooring. The only things that will really gently caress with it are extensive, prolonged exposure to standing water (example: my PO left a leaky dishwasher in place and refused to run a dehumidifier in the basement for so long that the entire floor under the dishwasher was covered in a mat of mold) and dropping heavy objects repeatedly.
corgski fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Nov 9, 2022 |
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Nov 9, 2022 13:18
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Yesterday I discovered my POs grouted my master toilet to the tile 
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Nov 12, 2022 15:30
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Johnny Truant posted:Yesterday I discovered my POs grouted my master toilet to the tile My goondolences
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Nov 12, 2022 16:11
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Johnny Truant posted:Yesterday I discovered my POs grouted my master toilet to the tile  x3 toilets in my house. I've got one that sits at a slight angle and that's the one reason I've never pulled it and reseated it.
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Nov 12, 2022 16:36
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Final Blog Entry posted:
Got me beat by one toilet lol, we checked our half bath and it's the same  Holy poo poo though, I didn't realize plywood smells so. loving. bad. 
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Nov 12, 2022 20:03
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Johnny Truant posted:Got me beat by one toilet lol, we checked our half bath and it's the same Plywood smells like wood and glue. You're smelling mold or rot I'm guessing!
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Nov 12, 2022 21:45
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VelociBacon posted:Plywood smells like wood and glue. You're smelling mold or rot I'm guessing! Nope, this is the new plywood I bought smelling like poo poo
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Nov 13, 2022 00:50
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Uhhh yeah plywood shouldn't smell like much of anything besides wood.
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Nov 13, 2022 00:56
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