Well, after having the size and scope of the project tripled earlier this year, the Park Project is in finally in in the home stretch! CEQA has been restarted. All the public agencies are doing their reporting thing. The electrical engineer is finishing up the electrical panel design and doing the lumins calculations. I’m working on the plumbing. The NGO is putting together his grants for the restoration work. By fall we’ll be ready to sit down with the supervising engineer and scour the construction documentation one more time before handing the package over to the client. Everything will be ready to go to the State for final approval whenever he’s ready.

One of the things we’re most proud of on this job: We’ve been able to save our client a little over $100,000; about 10% of the estimated $1 million cost to build out the entire project — not including another estimated $750,000 in grant funded restoration work. And along the way we were able to divide construction into two halves so that the owner (who is considering building the project himself, rather than hiring us to do it) can build out in two separate phases. This will allow him to build the most lucrative section of the park first, then use the revenue it generates to fund the other half.

This project has been one of the most enjoyable we’ve ever done and I hope we’ll be able to do more “Special Occupancy Parks” in the future. Most enjoyable was blending environmental restoration and recovery with a design for the park that has minimal environmental impact on either the park area or the very sensitive natural surrounding areas.

And now, some pictures and models of the project in process:

The picture at right shows what will be the main area of pull-throughs, with a row of right-side back-ins behind it. The road in the bottom left hand corner is dirt and was originally constructed by the local community services district when they laid a new sewer main. It will be retained and paved with a permeable material rather than hard surface asphalt. The native evergreen trees will be retained and the native plants will be moved to other areas of the park to create a natural barriers in sensitive areas.

Here’s a beautiful view of the creek we’re trying to restore. Despite it being classed as an ‘urban stream’ it’s still in very good condition and has both trout and steel head in it. Unfortunately, younger steel head cannot make it back into the creek because of the huge jumps shown in the second photo. (The individual looking at the culvert is an expert in stream restoration.) To add insult to injury, the young fish must then make a very long swim with no rest through that culvert that goes beneath a major highway. Adult fish can swim the gauntlet, which is why there are very young fish still in the stream. Though not on Park property, there are plans to use State funds available for the purpose to correct this fish ladder system and rip-rap the culvert. Another insult to the fish is the surfactants you see floating on the water in the top picture. It’s coming from upstream, and The California Department of Fish and Game has been trying to catch the individual pouring soap into the creek for a couple of years now.

Invasive plant species are another issue that will be addressed. On the tree leaning out over the creek (top photo, above) you can see English Ivy attached to the trunk. At right the same stream expert is discussing the removal of the English Ivy and the eucalyptus with the Fish and Game restoration expert. Eucalyptus oil is very toxic. Some studies have suggested that they sterilize fish eggs laid in the river gravel. Behind the Fish and Game guy is a streams and trails expert. To his left and right representatives from the Park.

To facilitate all this restoration work, I ended up having to do a topographical survey of over three acres of stream area, then translated that into mapping data for CAD use. Outsourcing that work alone would have cost the client some $30,000, according to bids I received (and rejected) to address the FEMA flood zone issue several months earlier. (Yeah, that’s me in the photo.)

Finally, here’s a quick little model of the bathroom the supervising engineer and I designed for the new park area. The original bathroom is a wood structure built on top of a two foot masonry stem wall. The shower stalls were also built of wood powder nailed into the concrete floor. The results were predictable. Because bathrooms and laundry facilities are unheated, and always damp, the building is now laden with rot. The men’s shower stalls had to be completely rebuilt this last winter. So this building is built entirely out of CMU block — including the interior walls and shower stalls. We also designed a plumbing maintenance corridor into the building. Access is through the wrought iron door you see in the center of the wall. It also provides access to the attic above. The mens and womens bathrooms and showers are the doors (ThermaTru Fiberglass Entry Door Systems) to the left and right. Not visible is the laundry facility and mechanical room at the rear of the building. The gable end siding is Hardy Select Cedarmill. The roofing is ‘Chestnut’ from CertainTeed’s ‘lifetime warranty’ Presidential TL line.

Click on the photos to enlarge

A shot of the expansion area. Some of the trees will stay, some will be removed to make space for the RV stalls. The other plants will be replanted along the edge of the creek.

A lovely view of Widow White Creek. That white stuff way down there is soap, unfortunately.

Here’s a better view of the soap—though the picture is a bit out of focus (especially if you enlarge it).

An old “structure” that was put in decades ago to keep the stream from cutting away the bank behind.

This picture is one frame to the right of the one above (that shows the log structure). This kind of pipe and wire setup is no longer used as fish resting in the pools can get cut up on the wire.

The fish ladders installed by CalTrans in the early ’50s. They’re too high for young fish to jump.

A view through the culvert. A very long swim in swift moving fast water for young fish. Weirs need to be installed to create resting pools and the water depth increased.

One of the most interesting things about projects like The Park Project—or any other project where the use of the land has not been previously defined—is the opportunity it presents to demonstrate how we can blend the project into the land on which it is situated and, in some cases, undo the environmental damage done by previous generations.

It is somewhat ironic that, with this project, the limited amount of damage that’s been done is not in the expansion area itself, but rather in the stream areas adjacent to the project, and North and South of the Park property. As the pictures at right show, someone up-stream is pumping a lot of soap into the creek from time to time; there are lots of invasive species (Eucalyptus and English ivy being the two big ones) in the area that date back to the turn of the last century; and the old weir structures were very poorly designed and prevent young steel head and salmon from making it upstream. (There are still a few about, but not as many as there should be.)

Now-a-days the various agencies that manage our land resources are becoming more pro-active in their desire to at least minimize further environmental damage to sensitive areas, if they don’t outright mandate that steps be taken to reverse it. And most land developers and folks in the construction industry see that stance being an intrusive roadblock to their plans for the property.

Indeed, it seems to me that there is a valid argument to be made against forcing current property owners to foot the bill for cleaning up the mess of prior generations. And in the hands of a different project designer and manager, this project certainly might have quickly gone down a confrontational (and therefore very expensive) road. Fortunately, I didn’t fall off the political turnip truck yesterday. Everything you see here is being funded by, and the work done by, NGOs in collaboration with the California Department of Fish and Game. The Park and its personnel are also volunteering some time to various aspects. The work will benefit the public; it will also benefit the project as a whole.

From the beginning my goal for the expansion was zero environmental impact. That meant no runoff into the creeks; that meant controlling public access to the stream areas, either by blocking it off completely or managing the traffic flow by installing trails. I designed and laid out the expansion accordingly.

The goal paid off in spades with the willingness of State and County agencies and NGOs to eagerly come on board to save the much abused Widow White Creek. As the plan stands now:

• The invasive species will be removed.
• Replanting with local species will take place where needed—mostly to replace removed Eucalyptus.
• The stream will be restored as needed. Old structures will be removed and where needed will be replaced. The culverts on both ends of The Park will have proper fish weirs installed so that young steel head and salmon can make it up stream.
• Fish & Game is eager to improve the upstream area beyond The Park. Something as simple as removing the pollution (especially the surfactants) will help the fish population enormously.
• Interpretive trails will be built, with bridges across the creeks and signs identifying the structural work, plant species, and so forth for Park guests and controlled public tours. (I understand the local high school botany class makes field trips to the creek every year.)

By the time the project is finished it should look as nice as any State or Federal Park, and maybe nicer than some.

Do you have a project like this planned? Let me know!

land use, enviromental restoration, stream restoration, new construction

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Maybe you’re a real wine enthusiast and have a large wine collection, or maybe you’re a budding collector whose been considering your very own custom wine cellar. The great thing about a custom built wine cellar is that it can be tailored it to your wine collection and your personal style. It’s also an excellent way to utilize the extra or odd space in your house.

But, where do you begin?

The purpose of a wine cellar is to properly store your wines so that they can age correctly, knowing that, it is important to properly construct your cellar. Check out the pictures below of how the Vintage Cellars custom wine cellar design team transformed an unfinished tool storage room into a cellar that fit over 2500 bottles.

Before After

How did we get from barren walls and a cement floor to a functioning cellar? First, we analyzed the available space. We had to keep a few practical issues in mind, such as plumbing pipes that needed access, a drain located in the cement floor that required a raised floor in case of a flood and a second door leading under the house that needed a custom manufactured exterior grade door to keep the cellar properly insulated. Additionally, we inquired about the amount of wine storage desired, and considered our client’s current wine collection, as well as wine trends, bottle sizes and varietals. This is the basic information needed to design any wine cellar. Once we had our information we were able to create a design.

With our design in hand, the next step was to prepare the room and install the cooling system. This took 7 days and required the following steps:

• Stud walls and soffit around all plumbing
• Run a cooling line or frame system
• Set cooling system evaporator coils inside wine cellar
• Set condensing unit in acceptable location
• Creating a vapor barrier
• Insulate the walls and ceiling
• Prepare the electrical and lighting

After studding the walls to frame out the wine cellar, we built a soffit to cover all the piping. Then we installed the cooling unit. We recommend using a ductless split system because it is very quiet, you control where the hot air runs and it is easily serviced. To install this system we ran a line set which runs from the ductless split location to the condenser location. We set the evaporator coils inside the wine cellar and set the condensing unit outside the house for aesthetic reasons.

Next we installed the vapor barrier. To do this, plastic sheeting was applied to the warm wall side of the cellar but was left loose around each stud cavity so they could be insulated. After the plastic sheeting you need to apply insulation to the walls and ceiling. We used rigid insulation, a hard foam with foil on the front and back. It comes in 8 x 8 foot sheets and is cut to the size of each stud cavity. We prefer rigid insulation because it has a greater insulation value per inch. Remember, the better you insulate your wine cellar, the better your cooling system runs.  Since this room had a concrete floor, the floor itself did not need to be insulated and only needed an application of water based concrete sealant with low VOC. Finally, during this stage of construction we determined where the electrical outlets and ceiling lights would be placed.

The next phase of our project was focused more on design and aesthetics. Our client wanted the cellar to be constructed mostly for storage and desired minimal display with a little room for walking and a small counter to open a bottle of wine. This was all preplanned and the materials had arrived during phase one of construction. The walls, floor, racking and lighting were a simple 4-day process. Our clients choose redwood paneling for the interior walls, which we placed over the insulation. Redwood paneling is a moisture resistant product that is both practical and visually appealing.We installed the raised floor and wine racks, which were made of heart redwood to match the wall panels. We completed the wine cellar with a few display lights and the project was complete. Remember, you can transform any room or space into a wine cellar. The best part is that you get to customize it. You can keep it simple and build for volume or make it a more inviting space with personal details specific to your taste.

The possibilities are endless.

—by Jake Austad

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Editor’s Note: Different jurisdictions will have different permitting requirements and require different amounts of paperwork to be completed before a project such as this can be completed. In some areas a permit for construction can be received in a matter of hours with plans hand drawn on grid paper. In other jursdictions (such as here in Humboldt County California) it is not uncommon for a complete plot plan and very detailed, professionally prepared plans to be required before a permit to begin construction will be issued. —Michael

wine cellar, custom, design, construction

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Finally getting around to writing about this job. After a slowdown over the winter (after the crash), things picked up again in the spring and we’ve been going ever since.

The tile is Spanish. The primary color is a dark, cobalt blue. The accent color adobe.

The job came out rather well given that tile is very unforgiving when it comes to irregularly shaped rooms. And nothing about this room was square! The floor fell 1-1/4″ from one corner to the opposite corner. Both walls headed in different directions, the opposite wall went in a third direction, and none of the walls save the exterior wall was plumb. Even given all that we managed to get it to come out decently. The owners were pleased.

Here are some more before and after pictures (some are a little out of focus, sorry!):

The rat infested insulation behind the old fiberglass shower surround.

The old floor and remains of the old shower, surround removed. Work in progress.

The old plumbing and framing for the linen closet. Entrance was in the hall.

Other end of the “slipper” claw foot and tile backsplash.

The new cabinet. That’s natural birch.

Finally, a new low-E double insulated, double hung window with natural birch trim

bathroom, remodel, remodeling, tile

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Like so many things, this kitchen repair morphed into a minor kitchen remodel out of necessity. Quite simply, what needed repaired was underneath the kitchen cabinets you see on the left in the photo at right. In fact, the visible part of the problem was right in front of the open dishwasher door, but it also went beneath the cabinet and extended clear to the doorway you see there at the far end, and from there across the kitchen to beneath the refrigerator (which is out of the shot, but just to the right of the door).

That meant, simply to get at the problem, that long cabinet you see there had to go. It was 14 feet long!

Now, this house was built in the 1950s, and the linoleum on the floor looked like it probably dated to the 1970s. In the foyer (through that door you see there) was a beautiful slate floor. Out of the picture (in fact, where I was standing to take the picture) was an equally gorgeous long-board oak floor that was original to the house. So, to line things up, the flooring installer had installed ¾ inch particle board, also called “underlayment”.

For generations particle board was the product of choice for flooring installers. It’s basically sawdust that’s held together by glues called “binders”. Formica® is made the same way. The difference between the two is that the binder used in Formica® is both waterproof and very, very hard! The binder used in particle board is neither waterproof nor as hard as Formica®. So when particle board gets wet it soaks up water like a sponge. And if it stays wet long enough, it reverts back to its original state: Sawdust!

That’s what had happened here. According to the home owner, there had been a pinhole water leak beneath the sink that had gone undiscovered for nobody knows how long. Then, even after the leak had been stopped, walking on the wet particle board compressed the particle board (now sawdust), in front of the high traffic areas in front of the dishwasher and sink.

The leak had apparently gone undetected for some time, because not only was the particle board degraded, but some of the planks that made up the sub-floor were as well. You can see from the photo at left where I’ve replaced a length of sub-flooring plank right in front of the door. Out of the picture at the bottom were two other planks that had to be replaced as well. One was completely rotted away, the others were so far gone there was nothing left to nail to.

On the left hand side of the picture you can see the sink plumbing hanging there, and a new piece of underlayment has already been laid.

Rather than replacing the old particle board with new, which would leave the new floor vulnerable to the same fate as the old, I used AC exterior plywood. It’s a slightly different thickness than particle board. But we knew going in that there was going to be a lot of prep work to ready the new floor for covering.

That gray compound you see in the two photos is “floor leveling compound”. It fills the gaps between pieces of underlayment and raises any low spots there might be so that the floor is level for the new covering.

Because the client chose marmoleum® for the new floor covering, we knew that this floor was going to be difficult. Marmoleum® is a difficult product to install to begin with, and it doesn’t like floors that flex. Because the girders in this house were spaced at 4 feet O.C., there’s a lot of flex! Yet another reason to use plywood underlayment. The to make sure the whole floor worked as one big unit, I glued the underlayment to the subfloor and screwed it down.

These next two pictures show the kitchen with the marmoleum® down. (I took two pictures, one from each end of the kitchen. The color is “cardinal”.)  The space you see there at the left in the first picture (that would be on the right in the second) is where the new kitchen cabinet will go. The width of the flooring was just perfect. The amount cut from under the cabinet filled in where the stove and fridge will go with almost no waste.

In fact, that little piece you see on the floor there is all that’s left! How’s that for a tight fit. The only complication to the whole business was the door into the laundry room (not pictured). The client bought extra flooring to put in the laundry room. But the two widths together don’t work as well together as just the kitchen alone. To complicate matters further, the laundry room floor is to be done later — meaning something temporary had to be done in the doorway. In the end, we tacked a bar down over the edge of the new marmoleum® flooring to protect it until the two can be seamed together.

In this last picture you can see we’re almost done. The client decided to have her plumber install the sink rather than us. The chap in the background there is from the cabinet shop. He’s removing the counter tops from the old cabinets. They look so nice the client decided to go ahead and change out all the old ones — including the breakfast bar. And, she wants to paint and do the other finish work herself as well.

All in all it came out rather nice and we were able to keep the cost down to within the client’s budget. Not an easy task at times on older houses. Often times opening things up is like opening a can of worms. One thing leads to another, and another, and another until you’re way over budget projections and nobody (including us contractors) are happy.

Preventing that from happening is something of an art!

kitchen, remodel, repair, marmoleum

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Finally getting time here for an update on the Cove House design/build custom home project. Since we’re now in the final drafts stage of the design phase, I thought post some pictures. Nothing fancy yet. When we get closer to being done, I’ll post some ray traced POV models. Just some simple top down floor plans similar to those you’d see in the home plan magazines.

The image at right shows the left and right side elevations. As you can see, we’re building a three story house here. The ground floor is the basement area, and the living quarters are above. I believe I said in a previous Cove House article that the original plans the client wanted to start with called for an 8/12 roof. I had to replace that with a 4/12 roof in order to meet the height restrictions for the area the home will be built in.

In the original plans the house was also built on concrete pillars. You can see remnants of them in the drawing here as I haven’t yet gotten around to “skinning” the drawing with the beautiful stone facade that will be used for the fully enclosed walk-out basement.

But rather than simply forming concrete, the basement area will be built out of ICF’s. That saves time, concrete, and provides built in insulation for the basement level.

At left you can see the basement floor plan. It’s been completely re-done from nothing more than a car port (complete with lattice work between the pillars) into a full walk out basement with a washroom and a shop.

We have stairs leading up to the first floor, washer and dryer hookups, a wash room (just a toilet and sink) off of a shop area on the left hand side. You probably can’t see it in this photo, but the rectangle at the foot of the stairs is a water softening system.

Below the stairs is the radiant floor central heating system, providing a nice even heat at much less cost than forced air. Since we’re heating water for heat, we’ll also use that hot water for the potable hot water supply.

Serious changes have also been made to the first floor. In the original drawings the bedroom at the bottom right did not have a bathroom attached, and the stairs leading up from the basement did not exist.

I designed the new bathroom to be very handicap friendly, since the occupant of that room will be an elderly woman. Notice that all the facilities are arranged in “turns”: Toilet opposite sink, bath/shower stall opposite the door, which is a full thirty-six inches to facilitate easy entry at right angles with a walker or wheel chair.

Handicapped friendly bathrooms are not something many home owners think about when designing their retirement home. Mostly, I think, because we a) don’t like thinking of ourselves as handicapped (unless we already are) and b) because our use of that word (“handicapped”) is almost exclusively pointed at handicapped individuals, not the elderly. And while the two sets of needs are not a perfect fit (you may not need grab bars in a shower for an otherwise healthy handicapped individual, for instance), there is a great deal of cross over.

Also note where the stairs from the basement come out. I had wanted to match them up to the existing stairs headed up to the second floor, since stacking stairs takes up the least amount of space (and stairwells consume huge amounts of real estate. That, however, would have eliminated the little Powder Room you see beneath the stair well (across from the kitchen) — not an option for the client. So, in order keep the necessary overhead clearance, I had to trunk the new stairwell out into the living room a bit.

You can also see the stairs coming down off the side deck at the front of the house in this picture. Something practically invisible in the elevation.

Not many changes have been made to the second floor. The whole left hand side is the Master Suite; bedroom at the front, bathroom along the back half. The yellow lines in the bedroom show the tray ceiling overhead, with two sky lights. The tray ceiling was part of the original plan, but I had to modify it when I changed the roof pitch. The sky lights are also new editions.

Also note the laundry room there at the head of the stairs. Yes, the client wanted two laundry setups. The tub you see in the master bath is to be an old cast iron claw foot tub, completely restored, of course!

Once the plans have been finalized I’ll skin them and give you a bit of a walk through prior to construction. So stay tuned!

Technorati Tags: design build, new construction, custom home

Back at the turn of the year I said one of the projects on the table for his year was a design build project I’d be calling the Cove House. Well, the project hasn’t gone away. We signed the contract the end of January, but didn’t get started until the first of March. And, as the first few months of any project like this are fairly boring, there just hasn’t been much to say. Happily, now there is.

This is my first project in this area of the county. It’s over a hundred miles from my office (one way!). I was told when I started that they kind of had their own rules in that area, and boy ain’t it the truth! I’ve been around the area all my life. In fact, when I was a wee lad my dad and I used to hunt just a few miles away from the northern edge of the development area. It’s a beautiful area, which is probably the only reason they get away with some of the stuff they do:

• Utilities hookups: $36,000 (recently up from $15,000), and for that breath taking sum they won’t even provide a construction drop for your contractor! If PG&E did that, they’d have the PUC down on them so fast their head would swim.
• Setbacks: The standard 20 ft, but there’s a twist. Off street parking within the setback doesn’t count as “off street” parking. They claim that this is a California Coastal Commission rule, but that’s bogus. Drive through any housing project in the coastal zone (there’s one less than 5 years old in Fort Bragg that’s so close to the ocean you can hit the surf with a rock) and you’ll see a 20 ft setback with cars parked in the driveway — in the 20 ft setback.

  I’d never heard of such a thing. But I’ve worked with enough bureaucracies and elected bodies to understand what they’re doing. They’re almost childishly transparent about it: They want the property owners to develop the right-of-way adjacent to their property at their expense. That way the county doesn’t have to pay to pave it over. So, if you pave the county’s right of way adjacent to your lot, that automatically meets the requirement. If you try to avoid that by parking on your lot, they admit they’ll be very picky. And since fighting town hall, so to speak, is a lot more expensive and time consuming than paving sixty odd feet in front of the property, they get away with it. The City of Fort Bragg did the same thing to my grand parents in Fort Bragg back in the seventies. It made residents pay out of their own pockets to put in sidewalks adjacent to their property. Side walks that had to be built to City specifications, of course.

• Community standards: All cities have some kind of set of standards how a home must look. They don’t want a three story four thousand foot McMansion being built right square in the middle of five a hundred one or two story, two thousand square foot suburban project. But I’ve never been asked to take pictures of all the houses for several blocks around the building site, and to fill out a form describing each house. Most building and planning departments actually know what’s in their jurisdiction. That this one doesn’t… Well…

On other fronts, the “design” part of the job has turned more into “modify”. The client found a stock house that they really liked, but they wanted to make some changes to it. And of course, meeting the above requirements (the parking silliness, mainly) has caused some other changes, as has the site and the local weather.

First, in order to meet the height requirements the roof had to come off. The roof shown in the picture is an 8/12; we replaced it with a 4/12, which is fine for this area. That also means the little dormers came off. The client doesn’t want a fireplace, so that’s also gone. And though it’s not really clear from the picture, the ground floor garage is cement posts separated by lattice. That would work for someplace like Florida, but we needed a walk out basement, we needed four parking spaces beneath, and we’re in the middle of a temperate rain forest. So we’re re-doing the foundation to hold the bank, and pushing the garage out to the edge of the porch on both front and back. Of course, since we’re opening up the garage for parking, that also means changes to the floor joist system. It has to be able to span the entire building without any center support.

So far it’s been a really fun project. On the one hand, blatant attempts to pick the tax payer’s pocket for more money than we’ve authorized always annoy me, and bureaucratic requirements are often silly (and sometimes expensive). On the other, I’ve done my time, know how the system works, and enjoying shepherding projects through. The design changes have also been a lot of fun. Even the architect that did the stock drawings is interested in the changes I’m making. The plans are old (designed to 1991 UBC standards), and some of the changes we’re making are green, which he is also interested in.

As we get a little further along on the interior changes and I’ll show you the before and after.

Technorati Tags: design build, California Coastal Commission, new construction, building standards

Finish stripping is one of those “easy” things that’s a hardware store video favorite. But as I was reminded this last week — it’s not as easy as those store videos make it look. In fact, there’s a lot that’s simply not well known. So, though I originally wasn’t going to write about this little stair stripping job, it seemed a good opportunity for a do-it-yourself entry for the Tips and Tricks section on using chemical strippers.

Introduction & Safety

To Strip or To Sand — That Is The Question
Both have their advantages and disadvantages; both have their place.

Stripping: First, there’s nothing even remotely green and environmentally friendly about chemically stripping a coating. While there are lots of strippers out there, the only ones I’ve found to be worth their time and money are pretty noxious. Some (like the one I’m going to introduce you to below) are down right dangerous!

That said, stripping is sometimes the only viable option for a work piece. Strip sanding that venerable old table might be quick and safe and easy on the environment, but it will also rip the patina right off the table. That venerable old table will look like it just came out of the factory. That’s probably not the effect you want.

Also, sanding an antique will ruin its value as a collectible! (I don’t recommend antique refinishing as a do-it-yourself project. If your appraiser says it needs to be refinished, take it to a professional furniture refinisher.)

Finally, for detailed pieces, sanding the finish out of all the little nooks and crannies is virtually impossible.

Sanding: If the work piece is fairly simple (like our table) strip sanding is a fast and safe solution — assuming you don’t care about the patina. In fact, with a good strip sander, you’ll be done before you’re through cleaning up after your first coat of chemical stripper.

Sanding is really the only way to make a work piece “look like new.” As a furniture refinisher I had jobs where, because of the detail, I first had to chemically strip the work piece to get all the old finish out of the crevices, and then sand it down because the customer wanted “that new look.”

Sanding strips the old patina off of the wood and opens up the grain. If you look at a piece of wood that’s been sanded under a microscope you’ll see little fibers standing straight up, ready to receive and absorb the new finish.

A Few Words About Safety
Most strippers that are going to get the finish off for you with a minimum number of applications are pretty toxic. You’re going to want some safety gear:

• Chemical gloves. Most strippers use solvents that are readily absorbed by the skin, and you’re going to get some stripping solution on your hands. Count on it. You can either get the surgical style nitrite gloves (they’re the green ones) which are great for fine work, or the orange dish washing style gloves (just make sure they’re chemical safe). In the pictures below you’ll see I’m using the latter.
• Saftey glasses. Remember, no matter how “safe” or environmentally friendly the chemical you choose is, it still has to be strong enough to destroy the finish you’re stripping. It’ll do the same thing to your eyes!
• Good ventilation or a respirator. The VOCs in some of these strippers (including the one I’ll introduce you to below) are so potent that breathing them will make your lungs hurt, and make you sick in short order. If you can’t work outside, wear a respirator.

Speaking of respirators, those paper masks are worthless for this kind of thing. In fact, they’re worse than worthless because people use them for all kinds of things for which they were not designed.

Those paper “surgical masks” were originally designed to keep the water vapor of the surgeon’s breath inside the mask, not to protect the surgeon from the patient. On the job site they’re classed as “dust masks”, meaning they help protect you from saw dust and so on. But they’re not even designed to be used around fiberglass, never mind asbestos or paint vapor.

At right is a picture of my mask. It’s one of the models made by the Mine Safety Appliance Company (MSA). Obviously, since I need my mask to work in a lot of different environments, the filters on this mask are good for everything from toxic dusts (including asbestos) to chlorine and sulfur dioxide environments. You might not want something so complete, but you’ll at least want one that’s rated for paint vapors.

How do you know what your mask is rated for? Well first, it’s not the mask, it’s the filters on the mask. On my mask, the filters come off. I can put a lower rated filter on the mask if I want. In fact, I can put a filter on the mask that won’t protect me from the paint stripper VOCs. So if you borrow a mask, check the filters! Make sure they’re rated for the environment you’re going to be in.

In the picture at right you can see the label on the bottom of the filter. The bottom half is green and shows the filter part and lot number. The red top half says “GME-P100″, meaning the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has approved the filter at the P100 level.

In general filters come with one of three different ratings:

P100: Particulate filter; 99.97% efficiency level effective against all particulate aerosols.
N95: Particulate filter; 95% efficiency level effective against all particulate aersolols free of oil; time use restrictions may apply.
R95: Particulate filter; 95% efficiency level effective against all particulate aerosols; time use restrictions may apply.

To help you remember the filter codes, “N” means No protection against oils, “R” means Resistant to oils, and “P” means Proof against oils. The number is the percentage of protection afforded by the filter. So an N100 would provide 99.97% (or better) protection against all particulate aerosols that are free of oil. In general, the “N” and “R” filters are designed to last one work shift (8 hours continuous or intermittent exposure) and then should be changed. The “P” filters should be changed when it becomes difficult (more difficult, actually) to breath.

Below the P100 rating on the filter label is a list of what the filter is effective against. My filter says: “P100/OV/CL/HC/SD/AM/MA/CD/HS (escape)/FN/HF”. Again it reiterates that it’s a P100 rated filter. Referring to the table above, we can see that my filter is rated for OV=Organic Vapor; CL=Chlorine; HC=Hydrogen chloride; SD=Sulfur dioxide; AM=Ammonia; MA=Methylamine; CD=Chlorine dioxide (escape), meaning the filter is only good for escaping from an environment poisoned by chlorine dioxide and cannot be used for working in that environment; HS=Hydrogen sulfide (escape), again only for emergency escape of the environment.

As a final note: Respirators are not military gas masks. They are not design for environments so toxic they’re immediately dangerous to life and health! NIOSH publishes regulatory data on maximum workplace concentrations for all the chemicals listed above (and more, actually). Those are the maximum concentration levels in which these types of respirators are designed to protect you. Exceeding that concentration level is not only stupid, it could cause you permanent lung damage or be fatal!

In practical terms that means: Open the doors and windows in the area you’re working.

The tools and Chemicals

The tools you’ll need for your job depend on the complexity of the work piece and the wood it was made out of. I’m simply stripping stair treads made of redwood, so I really don’t need a great plethora of tools for fine work. For this job I’ve chosen two different sized putty knives, a 5-in-1 tool, and steel wool (not shown). I’ve also got my cat’s paw handy because there are nails sticking out of the treads that I’ll need to pull as I go along. Rags are also essential. Don’t bother with reusables. Once contaminated with chemicals they have to be thrown away, so stick with the disposable paper type.

If you’re working on something more complex than flat stair treads you’ll also find dental tools handy for gently scraping finish out of grooves and other hard to reach places. (Available at Harbor Freight for a few dollars, amongst other places.) Tooth brushes and/or acid brushes are also helpful for detailed work.

There are lots of chemicals on the market to choose from. For this job I chose Greens. The blue can on the left is a “semi-paste”. Jellied chemical that not only sticks to vertical surfaces (which I don’t have), it also evaporates more slowly and so keeps air away from where the chemical contacts the paint for a longer period of time. The can on the right is the liquid form, which penetrates the wood better, and is also handy for cleaning tools. It also evaporates quickly, and so is not as useful for “heavy” stripping.

The downside to Greens is what also makes it so useful: It’s powerful and it’s dangerous! Greens chemicals have no antidote and no thinner. Which is why I spent so much time on safety. If you get it in your eyes, you’re going to lose an eye. If your skin is sensitive and starts to burn, it’s just going to burn (and turn red and all that stuff) until the chemical evaporates — which takes about 15 minutes.

So if you decide to use Greens, please use appropriate safety gear and be careful.

Stripping

The first step in stripping is to clean your work piece of dirt and loose debris. The second is to apply the first coat of chemical. At right you can see me applying the first coat of Greens semi-paste with a chip brush.

Put the chemical on fast and even. Going over and over the area with the brush only breaks the chemical bond between the stripper and the finish, preventing it from working. Quickly coat a workable sized area (one tread, in this case) and the leave it alone. Let the stripper do it’s thing.

It could take quite some time — as long as 30 to 45 minutes for some products — for your stripper to loosen the paint. You’ll know it’s done its thing when the finish is all crinkled up. On this job Greens cut through most of four coats of old paint in about five minutes. Whatever you do, don’t let the chemicals dry on the finish. This, in fact, is the best sign of a poorly designed product. It evaporates before it loosens the paint. That said, if you’ve got a known good product (like Greens) and it’s not doing a good job, recoating is appropriate. Use the same technique as the first time. Put it on evenly and quickly and let it sit.

Once the stripper has loosened the paint, scrape the bulk of it off with an appropriate tool. Since I’ve got a nice big, flat surface, I’m using a four inch putty knife to do the rough work. Clean the scraped up finish off your knife with your 5-in-1 tool. I usually line a paint roller tray with rags and scrape the goo off into it.

Use smaller tools to clean the spent chemicals and loosened finish out any crevices and detailed areas before proceeding. Don’t hurry and apply another coat of stripper before removing all of the first application. Not because you’ll hurt something, but because you’ll be wasting your time. The fresh chemicals won’t be able to reach the left over finish, and so will do virtually nothing.

Take your time. Clean up after your first application, then move on.

On this job I had to apply two coats of the semi-paste to get all the crusty old paint off. But because I did a good job of cleaning up the first application, the second coat cut through the remaining paint almost as fast as I put it on.

Now it’s time for the finishing touches.

I’m working redwood. Redwood is a very soft, porous wood — as are all the conifers (fir, pine, cedar, and so on). Believe it or not, it’s harder to strip a softwood than a hardwood. First, the stripping chemicals are so strong they soften the fibers of the wood. You can’t use detail tools like dental tools and hard bristled brushes on soft woods. You’ll simply cut into the wood without removing any finish. Second, the pigments from paints and stains penetrate the grain and wood fibers, “bleaching” them to the color of the pigment. Unless you sand away the bleached wood fibers, you’ll never get rid of them, no matter how many chemicals you use. (Actually, that’s not entirely true. For white woods you can literally “bleach” the wood back to something resembling its original color, but that’s a different article.)

After the second coat is scraped off I do even more detail work than I did after the first coat — including back scraping with my 5-in-1 to get all the gunk off the wood. Note the angle I’m holding the 5-in-1 at. The last thing I want to do is cut into the wood. Also, you can’t see it, but beveled edge of the tools is facing away from the pull — again to help prevent cutting into the soft wood.

Now I’m down to the wood itself. There’s almost no paint left sitting on the surface of the wood. So now we turn to the liquid. Pour it on, swish it around quickly with the chip brush and let it sit for a few minutes. Then it’s time to scrape it off. Notice in the picture how it’s really a mud. The Greens liquid is literally pulling the paint (the primer coat) from the wood fibers.

All that leaves is the stuff deeply ingrained in the grain and the fibers. More liquid Greens is applied and is worked in with the steel wool. I’m working softwood, so I have to be careful to go with the grain lest I scalp the wood. The picture at right shows what the tread looks like after I’ve thoroughly scrubbed it with the steel wool.

Once this last coat is worked in it’s wiped off with the rags almost immediately, pouring more Greens liquid over the surface to “lift” the gooey grime off the wood. Finally, I apply Greens directly to the rag and go over the wood to lift the film away. Then the work piece is left to dry.

The picture at left shows the finished stair tread (and my tools and rags). Note the “bleached” center of the tread where people have been stepping for a hundred years (that’s how old these stair treads are). Another characteristic of soft woods is that as they wear they “open their grain”, which just makes them wear faster.

On the other hand, the property owner wanted the antique look, and that’s certainly what this will be after a good quality oil finish is worked into this aged redwood. (If it was me I’d put tung oil on it, but I’m not the finisher on this job.)

Enjoy your stripping and refinishing projects! (And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to write.)

Technorati Tags: paint stripping, finish removal, safety, respirators, chemical stripping

Deforestation and predatory logging practice being the major concern of many that it is, regular old sawn lumber is rarely considered a green product. But for everything there is an exception. And my summer project ended up being one of them.

Every stick of lumber used on two of the three projects completed was cut and sawn (or split) right there on the property. The family that owns the land has been carefully managing its forest. Every year trees are harvested. But there is more standing timber on the land now than when they bought it fifty years ago, insuring a perpetual income that can go on indefinitely. It has been a great comfort and resource for the family.

The first project was to replace an eighty foot long retaining wall/terrace with rough cut posts and rough sawn lumber. As you can see from the picture, the wall is so long that the camera in my little camera-phone couldn’t keep the whole wall in focus for the picture. (None of these pictures are really great, I’m sorry. I’m actually surprised there were a few that at least give you an idea of what I’ve been doing.) The wall followed the curve of the hill for its length, and just below the surface, only six inches down in places, was solid rock, or “substrate”. (The New Englanders call it “ledge”.) While the property owner really didn’t want to spend the money to set all the posts in concrete, we finally agreed that it was going to be essential to set those where the substrate came so close to the surface in concrete. Even more fun was digging out the old posts. The crew had fun with that one, let me tell you. (Not!)

The second major project that used lumber from the property was residing the front of the garage/shop. We’ll do the rest of the building and its attachments next summer. (There wasn’t money in the budget, or the lumber, to do it now.) But the front was rotten; residing it was critical to preserving the building and its contents over the winter.

The actual siding job itself was no more than routine. It was simply rib and plank siding. What made it unique was the lumber. It was neither a uniform width or thickness. Three hundred feet of lumber had to be cut down to a uniform width, then I had Almquist plane and sand it on one side. Finally, I back-primed everything before assembly.

The (fuzzy) picture shows the planking going up. The white spots on the planks are where the primer spotted the sanded side. No biggy. I primed the planks with good ol’ white primer. I had a second gallon tinted to a neutral base so that the top coat would match the old paint. Not particularly visible in the fuzzy picture are the hand milled top and bottom water tables, or the flashing. A water table on the bottom of the top section was essential since the planking and ribbing change direction from horizontal to vertical below the doors. This can be seen more clearly in the second picture, which shows the finished job (less outdoor light, the paint hadn’t cured). The water table at the top was necessary because the overhang of the corrugated roof was neither uniform, nor long enough to ensure water could not get behind the siding. The double defense of a counter-flashed water table on the top was a lot cheaper than fixing the roof!

The third job was to rebuild the doors for some of the kitchen cabinets, and to change the facade to match the rest of the kitchen. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of this job. I tried and tried because from a technical standpoint it was the most challenging, and the most fun. But the lighting situation in the room was just too complicated for the camera in my cell phone. (Yes, I know, I need to get a better camera for this.)

First, the cabinets had been built in by friends of the property owner decades ago. So there were no straight lines. One cabinet was a corner piece, so I had to construct two trapezoidal shaped doors that would still pivot in the middle on a piano hinge (or “continuous hinge”), and swing open and closed normally on its spring loaded cabinet hinges. In other words: the door had to operate like it was square and look like it was square, even though it wasn’t. Once completed, the doors and facades were stained and given three coats of polyurethane on the outside and one coat on the inside. It’s amazing how good basic shop grade plywood and fir 1x4s can be made to look when you want them too!

Next: Well, for sure, I’ll be going to Crescent City to install an Ez Breathe ventilation system in a newly remodeled home. There’s also discussion about two new green build projects (one less than a mile from where I live!), and yesterday I looked at a yummy remodel project on a Victorian era craftsman. So we’ll see; we’ll see…

Technorati Tags: deforestation, predatory logging, retaining wall, substrate, ledge, siding, flashing, water table, kitchen cabinets

Whew!

Sorry for the absence in posting here the last few weeks. (Actually, I think it’s been a month, hasn’t it?) I’ve been trying to wrap up a project and for the last month or so and haven’t even had a weekend off, nor have I had time to do any office work. Both are times that I sit down and update the blog.

The good news is, today I wrapped up the project. I’ve still got a few things to pick up at the job site, and I told the home owner I’d haul away some trash for her, but other than that, the job is done.

I’m too tired to make a long entry, and I haven’t been able to go through the pictures I took of the work, but hopefully I’ll get around to that in the next few days. (I’m already on another job site — but I’ve only a few days to go there too.) Don’t know if the pictures will come out. They seem fuzzy to me, but I haven’t uploaded them to the desktop yet to see how they look on a larger screen either. Cross your fingers!

Technorati Tags: remodeling projects, property maintenance, home maintenance