I have an older home with a mysterious white powder in the attic. The powder is very fine, like talc. It is about 4″ deep covering the entire floor. I’ve found newspaper scraps in the home dating form the late ’20s so that is my guess for the construction date. Does anyone know what this substance is? It is not vermiculite, it is not chalk, it is not shredded paper, saw dust, or any of the common substances. I suspect that it is actually very fine clay powder, but this doesn’t make much sense as an insulator to me. Has anyone else seen this stuff?
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cocaine?
I don't know - but my 1909 house has the same powder from hell. I'm in Utah, is it a regional thing?
never saw it and I have been in a few attics in my life.
have you figured out any way to remove it? I've been experimenting with the stuff. It clogs shop vacs in no time. I'm going to try a venturri ejector next.
me and my straw are in route...see ya soon.
Get spoon, a bunson burner and a syringe. Try freebasing it. Or it could be the missing WMD evidence we are all looking for, or the previous homeowners were vaporized by space aliens or it could be the finely shredded documents from the Rose Law firm or it could be....
I have some white powder in my attic, but nowhere near 4" deep, and only in a few places. It only shows up near areas of stucco damage on the exterior walls, so I think it's from the old stucco, perhaps a bad mixture here and there. There's also some fine white powder that blew in during the sandblasting. And there was about 5 pounds of leftover plaster in a bag that somebody tossed up there years ago.
-- J.S.
Especially if you're near Death Valley, I'm wondering if maybe it's Borax? I can't imagine why it would be so deep, but if the original owners were trying to deal with a major mold, odor, or roach problem in the attic, I guess it would be very effective.
Richard
anthrax?
Best way to find out exactly what the white powder is. Put some in an envelope and mail it to a government official, make sure the envelope is faulty so some powder leaks out at the post office. By the time your case comes to court, the best labs in the US should have it all analyzed for you. Problem solved! Well at least the identification problem. Sorry, it's a slow day at the office.
Experienced, but still dangerous!
Edited 6/6/2003 1:01:44 PM ET by Dave
This technique, mailing the power, also would handle your future problems with housing and upkeep for a fairly long time. Free room and board, also known as three hots and a cot, are typically the standard fare for this sort of free form consultation.
Not related, but did make me think back to when I lived on the beach. It is amazing the amount of sand that collects in the soffits and attics of beach houses. You'd think 30' up there wouldn't be that much airborne sand, but I've seen enough of it in some houses, you'd thing someone put it there on purpose.
Diatomaceous Earth ?
Perlite?
Mike
It's O.k. to think out of the box, Just don't walk off of the plank!
Edited 6/5/2003 10:44:30 PM ET by Mike S
You guessed it Mike, it is diatamaceous earth. I am fairly sure anyway, I think most people on here would recognize pearlite. Diatamaceous earth has been used as insulation, mostly in attics. It is far from common, and (in my opinion) not very good either. I had to fix a drywall ceiling here in Saint Louis where they had that stuff piled a foot high. They had just nailed the drywall ceilings and the tremendous weight of all those diatoms helped the nails to work loose and then the stuff sifted down between the ceiling joists and the drywall making it impossible to get it back up where it belonged. I was able to squeeze it back up some by using many screws and some spring board tees. Then I had to fill and plaster the rest of the contours to get a reasonably flat surface. It was a sort of nightmare job. Up in the attic trying to scoop that stuff from one bay to the next while I reattached the drywall it was about 130 degrees. I used a couple of sheets of 1/4" drywall and about eight bags of Durabond. It looked pretty good when I finished though.
Do you know a good way to get rid of the stuff, if it is what you say it is? It clogs shop vacs in seconds. I've tried a Venturi Ejector, but I couldn't figure out how to collect the dust at the other end. The neighbors didn't appreciate that too much.. So far the best technique that I've found is a small shovel an a small garbage can and a bunch of small boxes to take to the dump...
I can only share my experience as a firefighter. We often had attic fires where the insulation was cellulose (newspapers) and the fire would smolder for long distances through the attic. We were required to follow out each smolder line shoveling the stuff into bags and the crawling to the roof opening and throwing them into the yard where the stuff could be spread out and thoroughly soaked. We did the best with a small tarp used as a drag and a small shovel. I often thought of creating a reverse blower system to suck it out and blow it into the yard but never got around to building such a system. One thing I think you should check into is the possibility that the material may have significant salvage value. I think it is not a real cheap material. How about using one of those cheap kids sleds (the plastic dish type) to drag it over to where you can bag the stuff up. The heavy contractors garbage bags that I carry in my truck will hold as much stuff as you care to carry.
We had an old house with a fine white powder in the attic. Once we turned the heat on, the powder disappeared, and left a puddle of water. <G>
Fritz,
Here in Sacramento, California, we're surrounded by rice fields. Rice has been grown in the area for a long time.
Once when I was installing a home security system in a house built in the '30s, I drilled a hole in a wall and all this gray-white, very fine powder started to pour out! Definitely not cellulose. I freaked, thought it might be some form of asbestos...but it wasn't fibrous at all.
Turns out it was burned rice hulls! This was evidently commonly used as an insulating material especially during the Depression. The stuff was put into both the exterior and interior walls.
Could your stuff be burned rice hulls or wheat chaff or similar?
Cliff