Hi everyone,
On a job now where we are sealing (or trying to seal) these basements against petro based chemical fumes from seeping into the house.
The homes have concrete block foundation walls. There are a lot of cracks, usually at the mortar joint. We’ve been scraping the blocks with putty knives to get rid of the flaking paint. Then we rake out the cracked joint. We squirt in some two part epoxy caulk, the same stuff used for anchor bolts, which can’t be cheap. Then we paint the walls with UGL Dry Loc, 2 coats so that the epoxied joints don’t show through so bad. We expoxy caulk the cracks in the floor, then expoxy paint the floor.
All the while the residents have their junk in the basement, so we’re constantly moving that around.
Are there any better methods or products that would make that job go faster and or cheaper, without stinking up the entire house or getting overspray everywhere?
Thanks for your input.
Chills
Replies
IMO, polyurethene culks and paints formulated for crete would be much less expensive, and safer for homes wher eresidents are in occupation. Epoxy paint is bad news. I wouldn't want to sleep in the same hosue at the same time or for three days after you are done. Tjhe poly is less expensive and would be nearly as good, if not better for some applications.
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Piffin,
The epoxy paint for the floor is a water clean up thing, so the smell isn't so bad. The dry loc is another story. A very strong ammonia odor, or that could have been the resident's ferret cage they haven't cleaned out in weeks.
Used polyurethane caulk before, poly paint I haven't heard of. Where do you get, who makes it, what is it called?
Ben Moore has a poly u floor paint
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Where are these strong petro chemical fumes coming from?
Me curious cat too. Luv Canal?
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hey everyone, sorry for the wait.
supposedly the story goes like this:
way back when, the refineries settled in a town called wood river in IL. they put in underground pipes to the muddy Mississippi River, so they could unload/load barges parked on the river. then people started building houses around the refineries. then they all became the town of hartford, IL. pipes leaked whatever into the ground. last spring, they had a TV news spiel about these fumes seeping into the homes. the spring rains raise the water table which forces the fumes up. and since a lot of these homes are built with concrete block foundations, the smells shoot right through the hollow cores and into the house, that is if they don't leak through the cracks in the floors or mortar joints first.
i have some opinions, but i'd be better off just keeping 'em to myself. besides i'm trying to get on steady with this contractor. i'll doubt that i'll happen. and i have a feeling i'll be getting laid off tomorrow. i have some opinions about that too, but i'll....
be back to the hall and/or the unemployment office.
http://www.epa.gov/region5/sites/hartford/index.html
There's some ducks-in-a-row if they do ya like that!
yep, they laid me off today. such is the life of a union carpenter in the St. Louis metropolitan area..... suppose i'll be stuck with the label of "hall trash" for the rest of my carpentry career, because i'm not related to anyone and i don't suck aZZ.
we were running two crews, one per house but next week they couldn't get a second house lined up. supposedly, that homeowner is all hooked in with a lawyer, which just makes a big mess anyway.
i think the feds should come in and buy out the whole town anyway. that's what happened in times beach, MO.
i sure could use a different line of work, or i should just start my own business. i am digressing, i've ranted about it before.
thanks mellen for the info.
forgot to mention that some resident of hartford was taking down license plate numbers one day.
i should be getting a subpoena to testify at some lawsuit any day now. it was the same lady that a coworker saw at the local convenience store. she complained to him how the chemicals/fumes were killing her.
Sorry about the lay off - working in hades is still work at that...
Lady probably is dying from all the carcinogens in the crude oil fumes. At least you wont be exposed to it anymore.
And, yes, it is ALWAYS better to work as your own boss. I partner with a few guys in ATL, and we split the expenses and profits just like a law firm or other professional group (which we are, by the way!). If you got a truck and all the tools, why sell yourself out for hourly anyway? You're already set up as a "turn key" entrepreneur, so just get the word of mouth advertising rolling and make a trip down to Kinko's and shoot off an ad to your local paper's classifieds. Set up a web page - some hosting services offer cookie cutter graphics and formats and host it for as little as $25 a month, so you can put your web address in your flyers and classified ads, too!
If you bump into some good guys you know, talk 'em into partnering with you. There might even be Federal help since this place, Hartford, is a Super Fund site, for you to get a small business development grant since you got laid off, especially if there is a pending action in court; that court case could help document the fact that you got laid off due to the untenability of the town, even in the midst of efforts (by the contractor you worked for) to remediate the fume problems.
That is why I asked where the fumes where comming from.From the intial question I was not clear if you might have been a HO and in that case I would suggest that this needed to be solved by correcting the SOURCE.
it just seemed like a bandaid measure. they had other companies drilling in the streets, for what reason i'm not sure about.
some houses got blowers and an outside vent. that caused the ductwork and the water pipes to get insulated. the blowers exhausted to the outside. a carbon monoxide detector was installed just to make sure the flue gases weren't getting sucked back down into the house.
i don't understand why the feds or the oil company (s) just doesn't buy everyone out.
with the drainage problems each lot had, i'd bet the dry loc and the floor paint won't hold up. and said drainage problems are going to cause more cracks in the concrete block foundations.
if i was that lady, and i was that concerned about my health to be writing down worker's license plate numbers, i would have moved a long time ago.
in this particular town, there seemed to be a lot of people not working. maybe they were so used to being on the doll for so long they were just waiting for that one big buy out check.
as far as health concerns go, i do wonder if there are any cancer or birth defect clusters, but after seeing some of the people in this town i have to wonder if just plain laziness is an underlying cause for both living in that town and not taking care of yourself. Of course, not working probably means you don't have health insurance, which means you don't have access to health care, and so on and so on.
A chicken and the egg thing.