Hello all –
I’m new to the breaktime forum, and have been lurking about for a little time… but something with a home remodeling project has me stumped, so I thought I pose these questions to you all –
I’m going to refinish portions of my basement (which was last finished about 40 years ago). There are linoleum “looking” tiles on the slab (some peeling or chipping off), and 12″x12″ ceiling tiles (of some cellulose looking material). I’m concerned about asbestos, and want to have a sample of each material tested before proceeding with demolition.
Where can I find a business that tests materials for asbestos? The yellow pages? Local government? EPA?
Secondly, my basement is always damp, although there is rarely any standing water (only during gigantic storms, like hurricanes, does any accumulate). When water does appear it seems to seap up from beneath, through cracks in the slab. Our home’s walls are stone (~14″ thick), and basement walls are pordged (sp?). The pordging seems to be flaking off slowly.
What course of action should I pursue prior to finishing (refinishing) the basement? Is it possible to waterproof the basement from the inside? Is repordging (sp?) called for?
Many thanks in advance,
Elia
Replies
For the asbestos, look in the yellow pages. That's where I found the lab to have our tiles tested. (They also tested lead for us on some paint.)
"What course of action should I pursue prior to finishing (refinishing) the basement? Is it possible to waterproof the basement from the inside?"
I'm not an expert, just a fellow homeowner, but I think I can safely say that, no, there is no way to waterproof a basement from the inside. We had similiar problems when we bought our house. Basement is dry for the most part, but in heavy rains, we got some small leaks. The previous owners had done the dry-lock fix, but had failed to fix the gutters or the grade of the ground and the dry-lock was of little use in that condition.
We've since re-routed all gutters, re-sloped the grade, and that has helped things quite a bit. I, personally, do not believe any old basement will ever be waterproof, so I will not be installing any vapor barrier and letting the walls remain 'breathable'. Some agree with that, others don't.
If most of your water is coming in at the footer (bottom of the wall) then you can consider either tearing up the perimieter of your basement slab to install drain tile or you can look at the perimeter drains that glue to the wall (though I doubt the latter will work very well on stone walls). Both of those options need a sump pump.
darrel is correct that you cannot waterproof from the inside very well, but it sounds like you want damp-proofing, which is doable.
All loose and flaking parge coat material needs to be removed by scraping, chipping, and vacumning. Then a new parge coat which is just a stucco or moratar mix troweled on. If you are building a wall in front of it, it need not be too neat. I would use a bonding agent like Acryl60 before applying the parge.
Then you could add by mixing a slurry of Thorocrete and brushing or roilling it on the surface - read the instructions on the bag.
Asbestos - it is not as much of a danger as some make it out to be. most regs in most places let an individual homeowner deal with it in ways that pros doing commercial work are not allowed to do. Once removed, all you need to do is double bag it in heavy black plastic garbage bags and lable them as possible asbestos containing inb most jurisdictions.
For the actuall removal process, ( this gets more complicated if kids are living in the house - if so, have them spend a week at the MIL house.) you have a mist spray bottle handy and keep what eer you are handling misted down. Put a window fan in the window, blowing out, and put a damp sheet over it or buy a HEPA adjustable filter to catch the baddguys. Find yourself a HEPA P-100 dust and particulate mask so you won't be breathing it and wear a coveralls that you remove when leaving the area. gemplers and other catalouges have Tyvek disposable coveralls.
Vacumn as often as possible.
That is the official
Unofficially, there is asbestos in the dirt you eat. and in the air of a third of the public buildings you enter.
I have handled and worked with more asbestos than is supposed to be good foir me and have no related problems. By far, the greatest amt of asbestos related health problems are amoung workers who regularly inhaled large amts of it and who also smoked cigarettes while workers who were side by side in same duties but who did not smoke cigs did not suffer from damage. The tar buildup in lung tissue prevented normal healing and the scars that resulted arte the cause of asbestosis.
I am not telling you to go ahead and snort a mouthfull, but if you are otherwise healthy and wearing an adult body, and take the same precaustions you would take for any other gross dirty job working around old gunk and hanta virus mouse dropppings, etc, you willl never know you were or were not exposed.
Excellence is its own reward!
I had ceiling tiles in my basement that sound similar to yours - 12 x 12 tongue and groove, made out of a material that seems like shredded cardboard that is some how bonded together. Had an abatement contractor look at them, he told me that in his experience this product did not contain asbestos. I agree with Piffin, I read somewhere that breathing asbestos fibers for a healthy adult is like smoking cigarettes. If you breath it for one day it's not going to harm you. If you breath it every day for 40 years, you're asking for trouble.
Before you spend the money on refinishing, eliminate the dampness problem.
Start with exterior water controls - positive grading, downspout extensions, etc.
Give it time to make sure you've got it under control or you're wasting your money and possibly creating an environment which can foster mold growth.
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"When water does appear it seems to seap up from beneath, through cracks in the slab."
This is often called 'groundwater surge'. The groundwater table rises higher than the bottom of the floor and pushes up through the cracks. Your basement is sort of like a 'concrete boat hull', but it has holes, and is not light enough to float. Even without 'holes', concrete is both permeable and absorbant (think sponge).
The pressure exerted by ground surge is enormous. Imagine the force required to sink a boat the size of your basement, and you start to get the idea! There is no practical way to resist it. The answer is to redirect the water elsewhere.
The typical retrofit solution is to dig a drainage trench below the slab so that the groundwater is redirected before it reaches the bottom of your floor.
In addition, you would need a vapor barrier to stop vapor from coming through the slab, and a thermal break (insulation or some sort) to prevent condensation.
Takes some careful planning to retrofit a dry living space below grade. Far more complicated than most folks imagine. Do some research, or you may be unhappy with the results. So many finished basements go bad....
DARREL510, piffin, rich, Bob Walker, and coreysnow,
Many thanks for the replies. I've got a good respirator/filter - I'll use it when removing all of the suspect material. I've done what you've suggested, on past projects - long sleeve shirts, pants, gloves, hat, respirator, and goggles... and separate washing of the clothes after demolition is complete.
About the periphery drain I still have a question or two. The questions really relate to the configuration of my basement... my house is an "L" planform (think of it as three essentially equally sized squares making a chubby "L"). Two of the squares are at one elevation, and the last square is 3 feet above the other two. Our house is very quirky - we like to call it a "split-ranch-cape" :) ...back to the description... of the two basement "squares" on one level I've just noted, the one in the middle of the "L" is the finished basement. The other square, at the same level, next to the finished basement, is a two car garage. The raised "square" is our laundry area and my shop. There is a ramp (I think concrete) beneath the carpeting between my shop area and the finished basement.... did I lose you yet? ...sorry for the longwindedness.... my question is: I wonder if my basement will need two separate periphery drains, one in the raised basement area and one in the lower, finished basement. Have you ever heard of this before? In one section of the finished basement is access to the house main drain/waste line - might be convenient for the sump pump exit (or whatever it's called). The dampness is really evident in the finished area, and only very rarely in the raised area.
And as for vegitation around the house - I have been removing it for the past few years. The place was SERIOUSLY overgrown when we bought the property, and I've been practicing a policy of scorched earth... at least until next spring - when we begin planting all around the house. Would not having any plants (that includes grass, shrubs, trees, etc) around the house contribute to the water problem - do plants tend to absorb the water around the house, near the walls?
Again, thanks,
Elia
For ground surge, you should only need drainage at the lowest level.
Tall plants around foundation do consume water, but can actually make matters worse by creating wet shaded areas, or creating a drip edge (off branches) in a bad spot. Low plants like grass my help to some extent.
Plantings will not do much to make up for bad grading, leaking gutters, or downspouts without extensions.
Draining groundwater into public waste system is generally illegal. Depends where you live. If you have a private septic system, the volume of groundwater may overwhelm it or shorten its life. The answer is pumping to daylight in a good spot, or digging a drywell.
Corey,
What's a drywell? We have public sewer. The home used to have a septic system, and a number of our neighbors still use their septic systems. We've had the gutters replaced, and have extensions at the downspout ends directing the water away from the house.
In general it seems (!?) that we have reasonable grading around the house (although I guess it's not good enough since I chose to begin this thread). The general lay of our property is "gently sloped". The front lawn and side yard are either flat or very slightly graded. As one moves around to the side of the house where the garage is (west), the grade begins to steepen past and away from the house, as does the back yard. Where our lot contacts our neighbor's lot, the grade is about 1/10ish. When it rains hard the rain water runoff makes a stream down our driveway and then down our neighbor's back yard. The runoff is so strong that they can't grown anything in that section of their yard, and soil erosion is a big issue (we've placed many rocks in the flow path trying to prevent too much erosion).
I guess I could go after regrading around the house (something I kind-of shyed away from, thinking it too much of an effort), in addition to the periphery drain in the lower section of the basement...
Elia