We’re getting ready to have the fir floors sanded and finished. It’s not something I’m comfortable doing due to time constraints and the steep learning on a soft wood. The floor guy brought up the fact that the floor was painted and they can’t girind on it if that proves to contain lead. However, stripping it before sanding would work for them(and the EPA).
My question is whether anyone has used a water based stripper that actually works. I’d rather stay away from stripping 400 sq. ft. of floor with methylene chloride. If it comes down to it we may just paint the floors and call it good.
Any suggestions are appreciated.
Jamie
Replies
Neither. If the paint contains lead you should use an alkaline stripper. It's basically lye. After it penetrates the paint, the resulting goo is no longer a lead hazard and in most places can be thrown right into the garbage. Do check with your local authority.
Alkaline stripping does require thorough rinsing, acid neutralizing (vinegar) and rinsing again. It is generally not considered a DIY gig, as you don't want the lye on your skin. There are no toxic or smelly fumes generated (except the vinegar).
DG/Builder
I would advise against using lye to avoid a lead hazzard. That's like giving up smoking to take up crack. Lye is very dangerous stuff if not used properly.It also will raise the grain of the wood, and potentially burn it and change the color. This all according to Bruce Johnson who is the authority in the refinishing area.There's and infrared light paint stripper that has had good results on house exteriors - you might try that. I think its called "the silent paint remover."Meth. Chloride would work but is also way too dangerous. I've used one of the DIY paint removers and it works well but its about $20/quart so its too expensive. The IR light might be your best bet.Or carpet.
Bob, you haven't got a clue. Your smoking and crack analogy is just idiotic.
We do alkaline stripping routinely on historic residences with excellent results. Check with a local expert and inform yourself. No, it's not a DIY project for everyone and I said so. The lye is the same concentration as commercial Drano, only in paste form so it can't splash. A lot of things are dangerous when not used properly and your infrared heat gun is one of them. Particularly when used indoors with lead paint. It involves baking and scraping, two big no-nos with lead.
Inhale enough of that infrared gun applied to lead paint indoors and you won't need any crack.
DG/Builder
Thanks for the thoughts. The alkaline stripper is a possibility, although I'm obviously trying to see if any of the current group of "friendly" strippers have any efficacy. (Hmm, I wonder what my wife would think about me working with a "friendly stripper"...) I've worked professionally with a lot of toxic stuff and finishes and thus am trying to reduce my overall exposure if possible. The lye isn't out of the question as I can put the safety suit together to do it safely if really needed. At least it has a much less onerous volotile component.
I'll pass on any sort of heat gun style stripping. A friend torched the paint off his house in Maine and ended up with such elevated levels of lead in his blood he was briefly hospitalized. Anything that will heat paint enough to soften it will most likely also liberate nastys. I'll just paint the floor instead.
Keep those ideas coming,
Jamie
Nice reply. I don't see a need to get personal here. Please, let's both try.
As I said in my first post, this is all according to Bruce Johnson who I think is really the expert in refinishing here. I'd recommend to everyone to take a look at Johnson's books - they are quite well written.
But its your body - do what you want. Whatever each person is comfortable with. I wouldn't do it myself, but that's me. Our difference of opinion. I am interested though - you don't have any problem with the lye discoloring or darkening the wood? Or does sanding take care of that?
I can't personally recommend the IR paint remover because I haven't used it, but they do say they are safe for lead paint removal. But sounds like the OP is against that idea. I've used ReadyStrip (worked) and Removall (didn't work) - but both are too expensive for a whole floor.
Bob
Edited 3/3/2006 11:06 pm ET by BobS
Bob, I am not perturbed by the liberal amount of BS flying around here, except when it might affect someone's health.
Alkaline stripper does not discolor pine or fir. I just did a houseful of trim (1908 vintage) and it came out the color of fresh sawn. As it always does. Alkaline stripper darkens oak only (not other hardwoods either). Oak trim is rarely painted, but when it is and we strip it, there are non-toxic chemicals we use to lighten it as much as you want.
ReadyStrip does not in any way bind or contain the lead in the paint. How did you dispose of the hazardous waste product from your stripping?
DG/Builder
Hi all,
Thanks for the info (and entertainment). Soy Gel sounds promising and I'll try to get a quart to test out. It doesn't sound like anyone's got anything much to say about the citrus strippers or other possible snake oil out there. That's why I asked.
As far as darkening the floor goes, sanding should take care of much, and we hope to stain it a darker shade anyway. I'm also hoping that will take care of some of the mottling that may be inevitable on an 1891 floor that's had a somewhat rough life. We're in Seattle and just gotten the job worth moving for, so we're selling the house and the floor is one of the last bits of the major remodel we'd done over the past year.
As for the question of why you can't just sand it and clean up well, word is that the EPA will levy a $10,000 fine if you do. When you look at that, the stripper's not expensive at all. Besides that, I don't care how well you clean up, there'll always be a thin film of fine dust that will be left behind and will continue to give to the family that lives there for many years. Likewise, I've never really been able to keep at least a little bit of toxics from getting past the protective gear, so the less sneaky I can make that waste, the better off I am. I got out of horticulture years ago because of the pesticides so I'm trying to be good on this one.
Thanks again, keep those ideas coming.
Jamie
All strippers needs to be neutralized. As with any type of old wood flooring, there is sure to be a lot of cracks and gaps between wood strips. Therefore a water neutralized stripper is more user friendly. You don't have to worry about getting the neutralizer concentration just right - it's only water - and you can flood the floor using a huge mop while someone else is vacuuming up the water with a wet/ dry vac. Bonus is - the neutralizer (water) will not harm the wet/ dry vac. Vacuuming is very important.This floor stripping thing is an on your knees job. Be sure to wear foam knee pads as the plastic ones may scratch your floor while it is wet and soft. I know you will be sanding after stripping but...Strippers which are water neutralized are also touted to not evaporate. HA! Get a roll of 1 - 3 mil plastic to apply over the freshly applied stripper. You can keep the stuff on for days this way and may need to. We apply, wrap/ cover and then do a daily test to see if all layers of paint have been softened. The plastic is removed only then and as we scrape. The hardest part is getting the material which is in the cracks.This job should be easy. If you break a sweat you have not allowed the stripper enough time to do its work.A second application may be required along the cracks. A modified wire brush (modified to be only one wire row thick) is helpful along with bamboo chopsticks which are shaved to a flat as you work. Do not use water until the WHOLE job is done. Then allow plenty of time for it to dry out BEFORE YOU SAND. The surface wood will have swelled and therefore deformed. Sanding right away will make the dried flooring look cupped. Depending on how well you vacuumed, you may still find wet spots, under the flooring, while you are sanding. Then you need more dry time.Hope this helps,FrankieThere he goes—one of God's own prototypes—a high powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live and too rare to die.—Hunter S. Thompson
from Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
Edited 3/5/2006 8:50 am ET by Frankie
Well, the other shoe has dropped. Testing shows that there is indeed lead in the paint on the floor (hmm, 1890 house, gee what a surprise). I'm bumping this back into activity to see if there are any other ideas out there.
As for disposal of the goo, it is interesting that King Co. considers this all exempt from hazardous wast regs. That said, we'll be taking whatever waste there is to the Household Hazardoous Waste facility and they can do what they need with it.
Thanks, Jamie
A couple months ago HD was closing out 5 gal buckets of peel away 7. It was like $35 instead of $120 or something. Make some calls. It didn't have the strength to strip my trim though. 24 or 48 hours of sitting time on a thick coating didn't seem to change the strip depth. It took two applications to get to the wood. It was a ridiculous paint thickness to take off, hard to tell how many layers.
I've switched to peel away 1 which is roughly twice as effective.
I was happy to find neither had a very strong or unpleasant odor.
In terms of lead safety its all about getting the grooves clean. The main gunk you'll get clean but what about the bits in the grooves? With water based chemical strippers you can flood the grooves between the boards and wet vac the residue out. The other methods will leave some lead-gunk in the grooves to slowly be reintroduced into the house. Seal the room, enter/exit via window, buy extra hose put the shop vac outside(HEPA filter and water in bottom), and TSP rinse the room when done. Should be a safe process.
Note, peel away 7 isn't water based.
Don't know how your floor is but many around here have WIDE gaps between the boards and sit on top of plank subfloors. A thin, watery stipper could drain through that kind of floor onto the ceiling/basement below. A thick paste like peel away 1 probably wouldn't. PA1 is some serious $ for a floor though.
Lot of work, but when you see the wood you'll smile.
splat
Thnaks Splat,
I picked up a bucket kit of PA7 to test out. I'm thankful that we've ony got about 300 sq. ft. that we need to do and it's only the perimeter that has more thatn one layer of paint. I'm going to pick up a sample of Soy-Gel on Monday and give it a try too. Whatever works best is what we'll go with. Thankfully, the floors are pretty tight seamed and the thick stuff should stay on pretty well. I will be interested to see what is left in the cracks. The big realization was how we've been living on these degraded surface wood floors for the last year since we took up the carpeting. I'm just glad we don't spend much time in the living room, but the dust is definitely there 8~0. I'll be glad to get it sealed up with a good finish.
The whole point of the urgency of this is that I've been offered a job elsewhere and we're hoping to have the house on the market by late April. In the scheme of things, the cost of the stripper ends up being a minor part of the final push. Time is what we've got the least of.
Stripper Test results: Peel Away 7 vs Soy-Gel
I actually don't have a real comparison of both products. I picked up a sample of Soy-Gel this morning and lay down a test patch while finishing up some other tasks. After about a half hour, I tested the adhesion with a scraper and the paint came up easily but not completely. I left the rest of the test in place with saran over it and went away for 6 hours. I then did a final clean up of the area and was truly amazed at how completely it all cleaned up with a final water wash. There was no noxious smell and the goo was pretty easy to corral. Overall, I was quite impressed.
As I read the label on the PA-7, I found I wasn't too thrilled at the 24 to 48 hour time frame or the final instruction to wash everything down with denatured alcohol at the end. I didn't get time to try it out this weekend, and now I don't think I'll bother. I imagine there are other situations where the Soy Gel may not work as well as it did, but I don't think I'll argue with success. I've got about 250 sq. ft. to strip and the it looks like it should cost about $120 for enough Gel to do it. Pretty reasonable...
Thanks for everyones' comments. I'll post some final pictures later.
Jamie
A little more broadly speaking, alkaline strippers (like lye) do not discolor closed pore woods (like pine and fir - I don't know my woods enough to know others) while it will darken open pore woods like oak.One other issue with alkaline strippers is that you have to neutralize the wood after stripping. The problem with neutralizing is that it is hard to tell if you have done it completely and thoroughly. I believe Peel-Away is now providing test strips so that you test spots, but that doesn't test every sq. inch.We didn't neutralize the Soy-Gel, but you do have to clean off the residue with a moderate amount of water and nylon scrubbies. This raised the grain, of course.
You still didn't say what you did with the hazardous waste you created with the Soy-Gel.
I bet you dumped it down the drain. So you used a very non-toxic stripper to loosen the toxic lead and dump it down the drain. In the process you also raised the wood grain. Great. Now you're an expert. You and your brothers Larry and Moe can open a paint stripping business.
DG/Builder
To give a plug to out favorite mag., FHB Special Anniversary Issue (latest issue) discusses the differences in paint strippers on p. 138. Methyl pyrrolidone is touted as a safer alternative to lye (sodium hydroxide), but takes more work.
I'm also in the camp that would not go with heat on lead based paint. I can't quote the temperature at which lead vaporizes (so the remover would get to inhale plenty of it), but I would bet it's pretty low.
Seeking perfection in an imperfect world is a fool's errand. Making something look perfect is a whole 'nother story . . . .
No, actually lead vaporizes at a pretty high temperature 1,000 to 1,100 degrees F. Regular heat guns don't go much over about 600 (the temperature that actually hits the paint), but stay away from open flames.But for a floor, I suggest using Soy-Gel paint stripper over heat. You can put it down, scrape up the paint, and push the used Soy-Gel on to the next surface. I'm just guessing here, but I'm sure 5 gallons would do 400 sq. ft. easily. Yes it is more expensive, but the total cost is not all that high. 2 1/2 gallons is about $120, and in theory would be enough to do 500 sq. ft. They claim 200 sq. ft. a gallon.We've been doing trim, and I haven't gone through a whole gallon yet. I don't know what the sq. ft. is though.http://www.franmar.com/paint.html
>>"No, actually lead vaporizes at a pretty high temperature 1,000 to 1,100 degrees F. Regular heat guns don't go much over about 600 (the temperature that actually hits the paint), but stay away from open flames."
OK, good to know. Flame, bad; infrared, good. I stand corrected (I still wouldn't use heat, but it's good to know)
Thanks.
Seeking perfection in an imperfect world is a fool's errand. Making something look perfect is a whole 'nother story . . . .
Phila, none of this has anything to do with the melting or vaporization temperatures of metallic lead. Those are just WAGs by uninformed yahoos. It would take a nuclear bomb in your living room to vaporize lead.
The issue is the creation of airborne particles containing particulate lead and lead compounds. These particles are created by the scraping and burning of the paint, whether at 600F or 2000F. Basically lead-containing dust and ashes. That's the hazard.
DG/Builder
Hmm, makes sense. The lead particles would have to be mighty small in paint, and makes sense that heating the paint would liberate them, so I see your point.
OK, flame bad; infrared bad. Either way, I still don't use heat on paint, but now at least I feel I have a better understanding why no one should.
PS: as pointed out by our resident scientist, lead vaporizes at 1000-1100 degrees (Farenheit I assume, can't remember the post off the top of my head and I can't see it right now). In my book, when dealing with metals, that is very low. I think it's well below fission temps, but I see what you're saying. ;-)
Never to old to learn, so this is all interesting.
Thanks.
Seeking perfection in an imperfect world is a fool's errand. Making something look perfect is a whole 'nother story . . . .
It's basically - dust bad. Keep that in mind and you'll be pretty much ok. That's the basic problem with any form of 'dry' removal (in terms of lead exposure, fire has its own risks of course).
It's basically - dust bad. Keep that in mind and you'll be pretty much ok.
Is the old method of just going ahead and sanding it down, without any stripping, outdated? I mean wear a mask while sanding and afterwards get rid of all the dust. Start with vacuuming, then move up to wiping down the floor, walls and ceiling a couple of times with wet rags.
That's what I did 10 years ago. I was intending to do another room this Spring.
Lead melts at 622F and boils at 3180F.
DG/Builder
Ah, now this is getting interesting. Yeah, you're right but are you talking about lead carbonate, or lead oxide. Lead carbonate (white lead) melts and gives off lead vapors at much lower tempertures than lead oxide. Many occupational hygenists disagree at what temperature these vapors become harmfull but the range is around 1000 to 1800 degrees F. Also, at what pressure are you talking for the boiling point?
OK, I'm just yanking your chain -- it's all stuff I pulled up on the internet. I'm a simple carpenter, not a physicist.
"Lead carbonate (white lead) when heated it decomposes at 400 degrees Celsius and emits lead monoxide, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Red lead oxide (minium) when heated to more than 500C there is release of oxygen and toxic lead fumes. Yellow lead oxide (litharge) when heated to between 300C and 400C it is converted to lead tetraoxide. "
I see that vaporization was a poor word choice. I should have said giving off harmful vapors.
Again, many thanks for the info. I still won't use heat on paint. Anyone who sands lead paint must have been living in a hole sniffing glue for the past ten years. ;-)
Seeking perfection in an imperfect world is a fool's errand. Making something look perfect is a whole 'nother story . . . .
Bryan, after using the Soy-Gel, what do you propose to do with the resulting goo? It contains the dissolved paint with the lead in it, so it is now a hazardous chemical. Are you going to mop it all up, put it in containers and take it to your local hazardous chemicals disposal company? Yes?
I sure hope you're not suggesting dumping it down the drain.
DG/Builder
depending on the local regs -the goo might not be considered haz waste and can go into the regular trash (double bagged?)
I've used the silent paint remover for a few years - works great but still need to scrap the paint and then put it someplace also used "peel away" - lye based paint remover with a paper "cover" - also works well - paint sticks to the paper (with help when you pull it off) - problem is the wood needs to neutralized after using peel away and that means extra work with white vinegar to wash it off heat guns/open flames are great ways to burn down your house - the heat can penetrate behind the wood and ignite the dust or even the fibers so a few hours later, the house goes up - plumbers tend to do this fairly oftenthere is a water based stripper - safe stripper (?) black gallon container - white paste stuff - might raise the fibers but since you're going to sand the floor, that wouldn't mattereither way, you've got a lot of work ahead of you - hope the wood under the paint is worth it
good luck
The Franmar web site discusses disposal. Look under the FAQ. Of course, it will need to do what your local authorities tell you.