I have to confess that i am writing this over a month after the fact. Things just got rolling fast and suddenly there was not a lot of time for blogging. It is now early May and i am trying to piece together what we were doing back in March.
The week started with our mandatory hazmat inspection and a visit from Mike of DG Environmental who came to take samples around the house. All houses have to have a report done before work can begin. This makes sense to me as we need to protect workers but it had me on the edge of my seat as any surprises could be very expensive. It was an interesting process as he worked through a checklist sampling the areas we are going to be working. (For a great list of ways your home might be trying to kill you, check out this site from WorksafeBC. It is alarming) The plaster lathe is not a problem apparently and of course we knew about the tape on the ducts, but i was surprised to learn that there is also asbestos in the insulation or packing used on our vent stack. He worked pretty quickly and sampled exterior paint and window putty on the old window in the basement. He had to do a return trip because he didn’t look under the tile floor though. I should have said something because i knew that there was vinyl flooring under the tiles. Apparently there are two layers.
We got the results back pretty quickly and much to my relief there was nothing in the drywall or popcorn ceiling! (This means that taking the popcorn down last May was a waste of time, but oh well. I did it all safely assuming it had asbestos anyway) There is lead in our paint though and wouldn’t you know it, the flooring has asbestos in both layers. This isn’t great news as i used a heat gun and scraper to lift the lino in the two main floor bedrooms a decade ago. I always wore my asbestos mask of course and kept the door closed when doing it but likely still tracked it through the house. Dean the builder is going to send to his Hazmat guy and we should hear soon what removal is going to cost us.
I was kept busy on the weekend in the basement cutting out the drywall with a little Dremel saw i picked up as my obligatory “one step back” project. This job is not fun. It creates hellish dust which clogs my mask and gets in my eyes and pretty much everywhere else. Small consolation that it likely doesn’t contain any asbestos. Some of it comes down easily but other parts are glued. I am working with my arms in the air for hours and my head tilted back. My hands are numb from the saw and i am generally pretty bitter about the whole thing.
Sunday after a trip to the dump, we tracked down some moving boxes from a Facebook neighbourhood free stuff group so we could get a proper start on packing. In the afternoon we loaded the trailer with plants to take out to Ward and Allison’s in Burnaby where they will spend the summer. We were a bit ambitious about how much the trailer and car could hold though and bottomed out coming out of the driveway. We stopped and unloaded a bunch of pots until the hitch didn’t drag and we felt it was safe to drive. I guess moving plant pots in the rain affects the towing capacity.
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