Wall woes

[tony ennis]

I'm trying to set up a shop area in my basement. It has concrete walls that have been thinly painted over with some dull mustard colored paint. As I rolled on some gloss white, the old paint peeled off in a crumbly sheet and polluted my roller. After about the 3rd time I gave up. I wire-brushed the wall a little. A remarkable amount of yellow dust was generated.

What are the chances this is lead paint? I wonder if there's a "home lead tester" at Home Despot...

The basement isn't finished, I don't know why the walls had any paint on them at all. I don't get the feeling this paint was supposed to look good. It looks like it had a purpose. Any ideas?

I'm going to wash the walls tomorrow and see if they old paint comes off.

Otherwise, I'll hang some melamine I suppose.

[Rich Carlstedt]

Yes you can buy a lead tester. I bought one a few years ago from ACE hardware for 6 bucks or so. It is like litmus paper

The paint is coming off, probably because it was not made for appllication to a concrete wall. Concrete is very alkaline, and also have a high moisture content in some basements. The moisture make the concrete effervess, and that would destroy the paints attachment to the wall.Therefore, a damp wall needs a special sealer cost to stop this
rICH

[Your Old Dog]

One of the TV networks just tested the lead testers and found them to not be very reliable. I guess you get a lot of false negatives and some false positives.

If I had the problem I wouldn't worry about it too much just put on a mask, clean it off and be done with it. I think the problems of lead were more for children as it had the most profound effect. I believe the most danger for adults is wallowing in it as some workers had to do in the past. I don't really think you have much to worry about if you put on a mask and clean up your basement for a shop if you make any effort to keep from breathing it or eating it.

We live in an age where only perfection is tolerated and that fuels the communication media, gives them something to declare as a possible threat which nets better ratings. Good thing our forefathers didn't feel that way or we wouldn't be near as far along as a civilization!

[oldtiffie]

Damp-proofing.

I am amazed that there seems to be no "damp-proofing" or "damp-coursing" such as impervious membranes on the outside of the walls and under the slab floor.

The hydrostatic ground-water situation is bad enough but when added to the capillary action between the water in the wall/slab and the warm inside of the room/wall/slab will only make it worse. It only needs a pin-hole or two to compromise it.

Painting anything on the inside faces at best is only going to be a seal that attempts to keep the water in the wall/slab in the wall/slab. The hydrostatic pressure due to the action of the sealant may well force the sealant adhesive or the membrane itself to fail/"leak". It will conduct and extract (waste) heat and energy as the normally quite high resistance of heat flow of concrete is all but neutralised if it is saturated.

As soon as the room/cellar cools off below the dew point in a possibly very high humidity area the water vapour will precipitate out and condense onto everything in that room/cellar/shop.

Sub-soil drainage - below the wall footings and the slab perimeter beams - of the granular fill outside the wall membrane is vital.

I sure do hope that its not that bad - but it can be.

I am continually amazed at the number of cellars in houses in the US and UK and that there are work-shops in them. Not to mention the "drainage" problems that go with them - even unsealed drainage pits in some.

They are relatively rare here - and for good reason.

I can't comment on New Zealand but I am aware that out Building Code is very similar for both NZ and here.

[SGW]

Yeah, you can get lead test kits. The ones I used are sticks about the size of a fat pencil, with a glass capsule inside. To use, you break the capsule then swab the surface to test and look for a color change. They seem to work pretty well.

[tony ennis]

My house is 60 years old, and at the time built, was well outside the city. In fact, until last year, my house was in no township, city, hamlet, ...nothing - until our Betters annexed the entire county. 60 years... outside all city limits... who knows what building codes were followed - I haven't seen anything egregious in the structure of the house. The owner built it himself.

I'm painting the walls not to stop the water, which I consider hopeless without professional help, but to brighten up the corner where my lathe will be.

It would probably be cheaper to get the basement professionally "dried" than to build an external heated building.

Regarding the dangers of lead, I'll probably just scrub the walls with water and a mild cleanser and we'll see what happens. Then I'll wet-vac the slurry when I'm done.

And in fact I do have an uncovered sump well in the opposite corner.

[cybor462]

I would be worried about rusting of your machines if you have a damp basement. You would have to have a dehumidifier at the least. Maybe waterproofing would be the way to go. I guess where you live you can't get away from moisture.

[ERBenoit]

UGL Dry-Lok

Therefore, a damp wall needs a special sealer cost to stop this. RICH

You may want to look into a product called Dry-Lok. A waterproof masonry coating, marketed by United Gilsonite Laboratories.

Home page: http://www.ugl.com/

Masonry Specifics page: http://www.ugl.com/drylokMasonry/mas...ofer/latex.php

[oldtiffie]

OK - but

You may want to look into a product called Dry-Lok. A waterproof masonry coating, marketed by United Gilsonite Laboratories.

Home page: http://www.ugl.com/

Masonry Specifics page: http://www.ugl.com/drylokMasonry/mas...ofer/latex.php

Thanks ERBenoit.

I checked that link out.

Also down-loaded and read the Briochure (pdf).

It needs to be read and fully understood and complied with.

There are a lot of requirements to be met to ensure a good job.

A phone call or email to DryLock might help.

For: tony ennis

I hope it all works out. With luck covering the open drain might help - but get advice from a Professional (Plumber).

[tony ennis]

Thanks all. The basement isn't particularly wet in that everything stays damp. The AC/furnace suck the air in and does what it does. However, I will get my dehumidifier up and running, or acquire another. There isn't much room by the sump well for a cover. The old one (2" of concrete) is too large to fit with the new washing machine there. Sounds like it is time to fashion a new one.

The corner where I'll be working doesn't leak.

So the improvements are:

1) cover for sump well
2) dehumidifier
3) squirrel-cage dust abatement fan
4) epoxy paint on the asbestos tile
5) wash walls down and try repainting
6) fix my darn lathe

[Spin Doctor]

Wall Woes of my Own

While I have to seal the basement walls in the shop area I have other wall woes. Installing baseboards and crown molding. Finding out the walls aren't quite as straight as I thought they where

[motomoron]

when I was renovating our 1948 house which has a basement dug to about 5' deep, I wire wheeled-scraped-chipped-crack filled all the walls while the room was empty and the tile had been stripped. I washed them, then applied 1 thick coat of DryLok all over; 2 in the areas which appeared to have the greatest likelyhood of water piling up outside. I made a cover for the exposed front sump pit out of polycarbonate. I have a pretty good sized dehumidifier which runs except in the dead of winter.

Except for absolutely clean bars of 12L14, nothing rusts down there. DryLok really works, but you really need your preparation to be thorough, as with any paint job your care about.

[oldtiffie]

Mould/s?

There has been no mention of moulds - some of which are air-borne and others attach to warm dark damp surfaces which flourish in warm damp dark atmospheres or environments - particularly where the air is stagnant or recirculated as is the case with heating and some dehumidifiers. Dehumidifier coils, catch-trays and drains can be contaminated as well.

So if this is the case then any mould in the basement may be distributed through ducting to the house as well. This is why toilets and bath/shower rooms in an industrial environment must have their own air extraction systems and vented in a specified manner to atmosphere - sometimes through specified filters!! I've seen rooms that are black with mould - usually bath-rooms, below-ground spaces and especially large public swimming pools.

I'd have a talk with a professional HVAC person.

[J Tiers]

St Louis is fairly damp, not like the deep South, but still significant.

With the UGL product on the walls and a dehumidifier in summer, my basement is non-rust-producing. When we changed to glass block windows on all but one, that improved it even more.

If you have cast-in-place concrete walls, you can do this. If you have concrete block walls, you may be OK.

If you have an older house with "fieldstone" walls (typically limestone) then don't bother, just leave the basement alone, you'll NEVER get it dry, and painting won't stop anything. You basically can't put a shop there.

If you are going to strip paint that may have lead-based pigments, use "Peel-Away" #1. It will remove several coats of paint at once, there is NO dust, and the chemical makeup of the stripper is supposed (per what the website said) to bind the lead into a non-hazmat form.

With that material, you slop on the stripper, and cover with a paper/plastic bonded sheet. In a day or two when it has dried, it has decomposed the paint, which adheres to the sheet, and can be removed about 99% in one step. No stinking, hazardous fumes, no watery slop of paint and stripper, and unlike products like 3M "safest stripper" it actually works.

[PTSideshow]

The paint you describe sounds like the old 50's dry you mix water stop basement paint which is a mix of sand 100% Portland cement(White) with color additive and was brushed or troweled on. after 50 plus years it flecks off and rubs off if you rub it.Easiest way to test paint for lead is rub something hard against it, not breaking the surface of the paint if there is a black or dark looking line in the spot you rubbed. its a good bet it is lead based paint. If it crumbles and feels gritty it probably is the sand based masonry waterproofing paint.A paint that was sent around to check the schools for lead paint years ago taught me the trick. to encapuslate the lead based paint to good layers of latex and your good to go.