Hey folks,
I’m an architect in Asheville, NC, working on a LEED registered project (a green building program from the US Green Building Council) and I’m having trouble finding a low-VOC wood putty that will hold up to commercial abuse. We’re renovating an historic downtown builidng and trying to fill the mortises from old locksets, etc. Our contractor would like to use Bondo, but that’s going to exceed the VOC limitations of the LEED program.
Any suggestions?
Replies
Wood dutchmans and tite-bond Yellow glue!!??
T
Do not try this at home!
I am a trained professional!
Are you talking about wood dust/chips, Dutchman's oil, and Titebond? Sounds like a deadly coctail. I worry that the oil would still be pretty high VOC...
A wood dutchman is a solid piece of wood thet is cut to fit in a mortise that was cut to remove a damaged area or in your case fill a lock mortise.
Any carpenter worth his suspenders should know what they are and be able to do the repair without wood filler.
Mr TDo not try this at home!
I am a trained professional!
Jesse,
River City Restorations from Hannibal used Bondo on Lincoln's home in the '88 restoration/remodel. If it's good enough for Lincoln, it's good enough for me.
This HAS to ba a joke! The crapenters working on the job in one day will expell more lethal VOC's than 10 gallons of bondo. Everytime I read this BS, it gets me more PO'd about how those idiots in DC are wasting my money. Diiickheads.
Thanks for your insight, Keith. Exactly that attitude from the building industry kept lead paint in houses well into the 70's.
Let the games begin
We've been there before, no fun. It gets into a screaming match about how lead paint was really good, which we know, and how it's the idiot parents who don't watch the kids, and the kids chew on the window sills and get lead poisioning. Or it's the poor folks, who can't afford to live in a place that doesn't have peeling paint, and their kids get brain damaged(once again, because the parents are idiots)
I realize that it is someones job to make up stupid projects, and someone elses job to develope the project, and anothers to supervise it, and even more to do it. The guy on the bottom is saying...."whatever, as long as I make prevailing wage, I'll waste all the time and money they have".....as the body shop down the street uses body filler by the drum, hardener by the gallon, and catalyzed urethane by the drum, as long as we don't fill these tiny lock mortises with anything that might have a tiny bit of VOC's.
Yes, we do have to start somewhere.We can excavate with spoons if we want, get rid of all that dirty deisel exhaust(which, by the way I LOVE)
Jesse......." I am an architect from Asheville , NC." Which kind are you the one that gives $10.00 to the preserve the rain forest or nothing to preserve the jungle? Try replacing the entire piece of wood but don't use lead paint to finish it. Welcome to the dark side to the unkown to something different..........Breaktime.
Surely you can thumb through Sweets Catalog for brands and request Material Data Sheets from the manufacturers?
...Sorry, didn't mean to call you Shirley....that's not a mistake, it's rustic
jesse
here is my sugestion, fire who ever is in charge of doing things low - VOC for being incompetent. It is her/his job to know how to comply with the regulations. That is what s/he was hired for.
By the way what does VOC stand for never heard of it? Maybe I can get a job as compliance officer for low VOC for $100k a month.
VOC stands for Vastly Over Charged.
TDo not try this at home!
I am a trained professional!
I'm a CT architect with some working knowledge of LEED requirements...under what LEED credit is this required? EQ Credit 4 seems to concern itself only with the VOC's in adhesives, selants, coatings, carpets and urea-formaldehyde binders. No mention is made of wood fillers.
Everyone else - no reason to shoot the messenger. "Green" building requirements are becoming more and more prevelant. Whatever our personal opinions on the matter, in my line of work, we'd be turning clients away if we didn't learn to work within the prescribed guidelines.
Edited 12/26/2002 2:22:26 PM ET by 1SOR1
VOC compliance nearly wiped out all of the useful waterproofing products available for heavy construction 10 years ago. Sika, Grace, and others had to modify the VOC friendly line to work in environments other than California, where a lot of these annoying compliance issues start....that's not a mistake, it's rustic