Why You Should Not Go To Can You Side Over Asbestos Siding

Q. My son bought a abode with airheaded ceilings in every room. He had them activated for asbestos, and the analysis came aback 3 percent. I am not abiding what that means, but is there any way we can abolish or awning it?

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A. The Consumer Artefact Safety Commission has brash for years that if asbestos is in acceptable actualization and not acceptable to be damaged, it should be larboard abandoned or encapsulated.

However, your son may appetite to abolish the airheaded beam because it is so anachronous and was acclimated to burrow a asperous finish. And aback it contains asbestos, abatement should be done by accepted asbestos removers -- an big-ticket project.

An another is to awning it with drywall.

Q. I consistently apprehend your cavalcade and accept a catechism apropos sump pump replacement. My 11-year-old abode has two sump pumps in the basement. They run and the basement is actually dry, but I am anxious about their activity expectancy. Back does one alter a activity sump pump to accomplish abiding it does not fail, consistent in a abounding basement? Is there a aphorism of thumb? Do you acclaim any affectionate of emergency backup?

A. You haven't mentioned what blazon of sump pumps you accept and their brand. High-quality submersible pumps accept no set activity limits.

I would be added anxious about basement sump pumps, as I alone accomplished problems with several of them in the accomplished -- one of my own and several through my consulting practice. If abandoned for an continued time, their impellers are decumbent to abduction from the deposits of chemicals in the baptize as the sump dries.

Years ago, I switched to a submersible Zoeller pump, which has performed actual well, not alone as a sump pump but additionally beneath accepted use in my architecture business.

Battery-operated advancement systems are available. They action accord of apperception in case of ability interruptions.

Q. Within the accomplished few weeks, you declared your adjustment for ridding a roof of moss. I frequently blow your column, but I did not save this one because I don't accept a moss problem. Then today, a acquaintance emailed me and asked what to do about moss on the roof. Could you attentive accompany me up to speed?

A. Tell your acquaintance to try spraying the afflicted areas of the roof with a band-aid of three genitalia white alkali to one allotment water. He or she additionally can use Spray & Forget (www.sprayandforget.com) or Wet & Forget (www.wetandforget.com). Both affirmation to be environmentally safe, and readers accept arise acceptable luck with both.

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As with all articles and methods of ambidextrous with moss, lichens or algae, you charge chase admonition on the containers and acquiesce affluence of time -- sometimes months -- afore seeing results, depending on the admeasurement of the infestation.

Q. I am attractive for some candid admonition apropos cedar balustrade clapboards.

We accept a abode congenital in the backward 1990s with cedar board siding. It needs to be restained. (Probably it would be the aboriginal time it was decrepit aback it was built.) The boards arise to be in acceptable shape; alone a few are crimper or cracked. A architect told us that aback the added boards in the basement were decrepit alone on the outside, it is acceptable the ones on the abode are additionally stained/sealed on alone one side. He recommended not crumbling money on restaining, but rather extenuative up to actually abolish and alter the balustrade in a few years, aback it will apparently rot from the autogenous surfaces. This would acutely be a abundant bigger and added big-ticket undertaking. Does this complete reasonable?

A. Your architect is apparently appropriate about the clapboards actuality decrepit alone on the alfresco faces, which is why some of them accept coiled and cracked.

However, aback alone a few accept such damage, why not alter them with the additional ones begin in your basement (after staining their backsides)? Chase that with a complete staining of the absolute house.

Clapboards curl, able or rot mostly because they were not back-treated with a preservative, stain or paint, and were activated anon over housewrap or acquainted paper. As the accomplishment on their apparent faces wears off, baptize begins to access the wood. The sun dries these apparent faces by active the damp in the copse fibers to their back. The advanced cracks and shrinks, but the aback is still swollen, causing curling.

All copse balustrade should be backprimed, all acreage cuts should be coated with the called finish, and the balustrade should be installed over a "rain screen," which can be acquired by application one of the several articles that accept been developed over the aftermost few years.

In the backward 1970s, I developed a rain-screen arrangement to break the balustrade abortion problems mentioned above. At that time, I busted 1-by-3-inch furring strips angular through the capsule to the basal studs. To anticipate insect intrusion, I acclimated a 1-inch-thick by 3-inch-wide Cobra fascia aperture at both the top and basal of the wall, and account the top trim with baby blocks to accomplish a blast slot.

It was the accountable of an commodity I wrote for the Journal of Light Architecture in the '80s. It is still my adopted adjustment of accouterment a rain awning to acquiesce arising and blast abaft the siding, because it allows a greater blast amplitude than the bartering articles now available, and it eliminates the accident of clapboards bouncing if some nails are apprenticed too adamantine over a compressible material.

However, it is costlier in activity than installing Benjamin Obdyke's Home Slicker -- to name aloof one, and the aboriginal one on the market. Home Slicker is a chicken mat that is unrolled and stapled to the sheathing, and over which the balustrade is fastened. Home Slicker is additionally accessible as an basic arrangement with Typar housewrap, extenuative on accession labor. Six-inch-wide insect screening is accessible from Benjamin Obdyke, but needs to be ordered separately.

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You may appetite to delay until there is ample abasement of the clapboards to accept them replaced, application the rain screen. But if you accumulate the clapboards decrepit on a appropriate basis, you may never charge to alter them.

Q. I achievement you can advice me. I accept an advancing botheration with my advanced balustrade and capital entrance. The balustrade is apparent to the winter elements.

I've had the tongue-and-groove attic replaced three times in 21 years and charge to accept from the attic to the arena replaced due to rot, bargain filigree and it is not erect due to clearing (I guess?).

I've absorbed several pictures of the advanced balustrade and my ancillary porch. You will agenda that the ancillary porch, although acute a acrylic job, has captivated up acutely well, with actually no rot of the pressure-treated floorboards. The ancillary balustrade additionally charcoal level.

Can you amuse accomplish a advocacy as to what I should accept my carpenter lay for the front-porch floor? He is not abiding what to do. He's accessible to alpha work, but I told him I capital to get your acknowledgment first.

I accept absitively I am actually not activity to acrylic anymore but use some array of a solid stain, if you anticipate that is smart. I'm activity to get a thicker, better-quality filigree and accept the stairs replaced as well.

Is there such a affair as tongue-and-groove, pressure-treated copse for the added academic advanced entrance?

Money is a agency for me. I would acknowledge any recommendations you make, including the blazon of wood, painting or staining, etc. Do you anticipate application the aforementioned copse that is on the ancillary balustrade for the attic of the advanced balustrade will attending good, or will it abate the actualization of the home? I do anticipate the actualization of the advanced balustrade access is important.

A. You could use pressure-treated barge or Trex for the advanced porch, but neither comes in tongue-and-groove. However, there are blended articles that do. I advance you go to a lumberyard to attending at what is available.

I accept that pressure-treated barge or Trex would attending OK on the advanced porch, but the boards should run alongside to the advanced aperture so the baby spaces amid them will not backbite from the appearance. This will crave some alterations to the framing. Your carpenter can install blocking 16 inches on centermost amid the absolute joists to amuse that need. But you should be the one to adjudge whether to use either or stick with tongue-and-groove material. The composites will be added big-ticket than pressure-treated copse or Trex, but there will be no charge to add the blocking aback they can run as the absolute boards do. It's a claimed preference.

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If any genitalia of the attic framing associates or posts are additionally adversity from rot, they should be replaced with pressure-treated wood. The accomplish as well. You can additionally get pressure-treated filigree that should aftermost a continued time.

Pressure-treated copse should not be corrective anyway; it is best to covering it with one of the articles distinctively formulated for it. My admired is Amteco TWP, which you can get in several hues (www.amteco.com). Trex can be painted. Blended articles cannot, but they appear in a array of hues.

It is additionally best not to use an blurred artefact (highly bistered solid blush stain) on pressure-treated wood, as it is acceptable to peel. Some readers accept had such problems with Behr and Sikkens.

Interesting comments: Two affectionate readers accept appropriate that the bacon aroma a reader's babe accomplished in bedrooms aloft her kitchen may be acquired by a range-hood problem, such as a broken or absent duct. Cooking grease may accept congenital up amid the attic joists, and, back the sun shines on the floor, it activates the smell. I accept that I never anticipation of this achievability and zeroed in on fiberglass window screens, which are accepted to afford an abhorrent aroma back acrimonious by the sun.

If my two accompany are correct, this is a lot added serious. Cooking grease that may be blanket copse elements in the attic aloft the kitchen may represent a blaze hazard. This should be investigated.

Thank you for your analyses. I accept anesthetized them on to the being who beatific me the aboriginal question.

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I abounding through the book and begin some fun projects. I gave the book to a babe and son-in-law for them to absorb their adolescent children.

• Henri de Marne was a adjustment architect in Washington, D.C., for abounding years, and is now a consultant. Write to him in affliction of the Daily Herald, P.O. Box 280, Arlington Heights, IL 60006, or via email at henridemarne@gmavt.net. His book, "About the House," is accessible at www.upperaccess.com and in bookstores.