Last in the series. Thank Grok.

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 3-3-03

 

ENOUGH ALREADY WITH THE PRESSURE TREATED WOOD

OR

OSMOSE SAFETY

 

          I promise that this is the last in my series on pressure treated wood. I’ve told you about the chemicals that are in today’s P.T. wood, and explained the changes that will occur within the next year. Now for safety. These rules apply to both CCA and tomorrow’s P.T. wood, ACQ. Don’t know what I’m talking about? You should have been listening instead of chewing gum and passing notes.

          The copper, chromium and arsenic in CCA are in solution form and can leach into the soil. Organic Gardening claims that raised beds made with CCA timbers can taint your veggies. Use rocks instead, and make sure they don’t glow in the dark.

          Breathing the dust of CCA cannot be good for you: wear a mask when cutting it. If you build decks for a living, this might seem uncomfortable, but slow poisoning through heavy metals is worse. At least use controlled breathing while cutting.

          The manufacturers recommend that scraps should not be burned. So what should you do with them? According to the guy I talked to at Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, scraps and dust should be mixed with other construction trash and taken to the landfill. He said it was in Oklahoma, so this was acceptable. I am not making this up.

          There are alternatives to using CCA or ACQ. Composite wood/plastic products such as “Trex” are made from wood chips and recycled (or virgin) plastic, and are supposed to last five times longer than CCA. This is comforting to the Oklahomans near the landfills, I am sure. It is two to three times as expensive as wood and takes longer to install.

          You could build your deck from redwood or cedar, but they will eventually rot just like any other wood, and are again, more expensive. Using opaque stains, even on CCA, will make your deck last longer.

          Or you could just build a patio out of flat stones and not poison anybody, nor contribute to an industry you might not otherwise care to support.

          Even though I am a carpenter, I don’t like supporting Tree Farms. I plan to start building houses from water. Then when you get a leak in your roof, the water comes together to fill it. Sounds like a plan.

          “VIRGIN” plastic?? PULLL EEEEZE.

Second in the series on pressure treated wood. Though pretty much obsolete, there is still some of the older P.T. wood containing arsenic out there. Keep an eye out.

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 2-18-03      

PRESSURE TREATED LUMBER II

          That wet, heavy, green lumber you bought to build your deck is about to go the way of the dinosaurs. No, it won’t be the victim of an apocalyptic meteor impact. Well, okay, it COULD, but we’re splitting straws here. What I’m telling you is that recent federal legislation will change the formula for treating wood.

Presently, this wood (called CCA) is most commonly treated with copper, chromium and arsenic, all heavy metals. The arsenic is the most dangerous, and the chemicals, being in solution form, can leach from the wood. Concern for children’s exposure to CCA in playground equipment has prompted the legislation that banned CCA from being produced after December of this year.

I will not climb up on my soapbox to call this purely political, because I wouldn’t want my nonexistent kids to be constantly exposed to chemicals such as these. Nor would I preach in the other direction, saying that few cases of arsenic poisoning have been documented from this source. Allergic reactions to peanuts hurt more children each year than CCA lumber, unless it falls on them. But I digress, and that usually smells bad.

The fact is, what was CCA will become ACQ, an abbreviation for alkaline, quat and copper. Copper is still there, and my research into just what type of alkaline and what in the world “quat” is has led me nowhere. I don’t believe it’s the same stuff they chew to get high in Yemen.

An inquiry to Hickson Company, one of the state’s biggest treaters, showed me that they don’t really know what it is. I will continue to research.

They did tell me these facts. Prices for treated wood will increase by 40% as ACQ is introduced, then will come down as the change is made. ACQ works just as well as CCA to repel rot and insects. There are other products that may emerge to compete with ACQ.

My guess is that ACQ will be found to have some detrimental effect on laboratory mice when fed to them in large amounts. As would peanuts.

Next time, we wrap this subject up with safety tips YOU should use around CCA wood.

This was in The Lovely County Citizen of Eureka Springs, and is nearly obsolete. Pressure treated wood no longer has the dreaded arsenic, but as far as I know, still has copper and chromium. So don't suck on a splinter.

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 2-3-03

PRESSURE TREATED WOOD PT. 1

          There are few things more misunderstood than the dangerous substances encountered in dealing with old buildings. Lead, silica, asbestos, volatile organic compounds from curing varnishes and paint; it’s a veritable witch’s brew. All have had their usefulness, and many have been eliminated because of health concerns.

          I understand the mindset to avoid the use of toxic substances in building. The manufacture of these chemicals is far more toxic than their use. But I want to point out some things about one product in particular: pressure treated wood.

          Infused with copper, chromium and arsenic, CCA (or ‘osmose,’ or ‘that heavy wet green crap they build decks out of’) is yellow pine that, after treating, is more resistant to rot and termites than non-treated wood. It not impervious to these problems: it just resists them well.                   Don’t believe me? The picture shows what happens when a porch frame is built out of anything but CCA. The builder of this porch used spruce, a particularly bad wood for this purpose. The builder should be ashamed. He should have at least known better.

The porch is less than ten years old. It is costing thousands to fix.

All this could have been avoided with the use of CCA. It is CODE to use CCA in an exposed location or where there is wood contacting a pier or other foundation masonry. It is sheer idiocy NOT to.

Many people have concerns over the health issues involved in using such wood. Chromium, copper and arsenic are all very toxic elements, all heavy metals. So why do laws insist on their use?

To avoid the problem illustrated.

But CCA will be phased out this summer, to be replaced by other types of pressure treated wood. Why? I’ll discuss this next time.

Want to contact me? You can at artandarchitecture@earthlink.net

This appeared in the Lovely County Citizen of Eureka Springs Arkansas way back when I was crazy enough to live there. It proves that on many occasions, I had no idea what to write about ("About what to write!!!" E.B White screamed while turning in his grave).

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 11-29-04

ASK DR. SMARTYPANTS

          I figure its time to impart some really useful information on electricity, such as the fact that you can make a balloon stick to just about anything by rubbing it on your hair first. Except cacti. It’s also an excellent way to collect unused dandruff for charity.

          This is due to static electricity, which is prevalent now due to sunspots and the spinning of Atlantis or some other hippie diatribe based on psychoactive substances. My point is you should not dig around in your computer to change modems or sound cards before making sure you previously discharged the static electricity you gathered walking across the carpet. This can be done by touching your dog or spouse. Computers are very sensitive to even the slightest change (such as breathing in the same room), so make sure you shock someone else before touching the machine.

          “Chewing wintergreen Lifesavers in a dark room produces green sparks in your teeth.” I’m sure most of you old hipsters heard of this while reading Tom Robbins’ “Another Roadside Attraction.” I know I did, man. Heh heh. The shocking fact is that YOU CAN DO THIS WITH ANY HARD CANDY CONTAINING SUGAR. Don’t ask me how it works, just stay away from the gas pumps while doing it.

          “You can die from a lightning strike that comes through your phone lines.” This is true; though phone lines carry a miniscule amount of electricity (about one sixteenth of a leper-groot), they can indeed transmit a huge amount of leper-groots when struck by lightning, so use the cordless when it thunders. I am not making this up. Well, okay, the leper-groot bit I did.

          “You are protected from lightning while in your car.” This is basically true, at least for me. I have twice been hit by lightning while driving, and all it did was fry the electrical harness in my 1970 Chevy Van. The same bolt hit four other cars simultaneously and they all drove away. It probably has something to do with the tires. Send your questions to “Ask Dr. Smartypants” and I’ll do my best to avoid them.

 

This was taken from the Lovely County Citizen in the spring of '05. The only newspaper of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, made me stick to 350 words in my twice-a-month colulumn. It made me very concise. I had a picture and a byline, too. Nyaaahh.

 

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 3-29-05 

EMERGENCE, SEE?

 This picture has absolutely nothing to do with the colulumn. It was taken on a thankfully cold morning, otherwise I would not be here to write this. I just thought I'd relate the tale. This is MY blog, after all.

While on the tail end of an exterior restoration on Arch Street in Little Rock Arkansas, I had my lead carpenter out early to look at a set of stairs that led to an upstairs studio in the carriage house behind the main house. I got up on a ladder to point out the needed repairs to Jim Santini, who watched from six feet below as I pointed. "What's that by your head?" he asked, and when I turned, I saw this thing four inches from my face.

"I'm going to get off the ladder very, very slowly," I said, not drawing another breath until I was down. We were in the shadow of a thirteen story apartment complex, and the paper wasps, to which I am HIGHLY allergic, were sluggish on the cold morning.

We stood there and looked at them for some time. I told the homeowner to get rid of them before my crew would return. He did.

 

This is the article, er, colulumn. I wrote it three years after the picture was taken.

 

 

 

          I’ll try to make this brief. After all, it might be too late by the time you read this. You know what I’m talking about.

Ladybugs and wasps.

Five years ago, I moved from Little Rock into a new log cabin.

My first project was a 3-story addition to the Piedmont house, where I finished both new rooms’ interiors with tongue-in-groove siding. The owner was happy, the guests were treated to a fine view and a finer meal, and all seemed right with the world, if you don’t count the Gummint’s occasional bombing of a small Islamic country. The job started in August, was finished by December, and the next May, All Hell broke loose.

“You must have left a hole open somewhere,” the bellicose owner complained over the phone. “There’s red wasps everywhere!” I said I’d be right over.

Indeed, hundreds of red wasps were bobbing about the vaulted ceiling, banging their little waspy heads on the windows, and sluggishly emerging from cracks in the interior woodwork. But an outside inspection showed no holes at all.

They were gone in a day.

I puzzled about this until it happened again, this time at my house. I also have interior paneling from which hundreds of the sleepy wingstings emerged. My dogs eagerly ate them, crying from the stings. Maybe they’re like puppy jalapeños.

It was last year that I figured it out. In March, just as the weather warmed, tens of thousands of ladybugs began to infest the house, or so I thought. But when I found one of their behind-the-cupboard hiding places, where they were thousands deep, I got it.

Wasps and ladybugs begin looking for winter hiding places in October, and they hang around your doors, just waiting to come in and hole up one at a time. But they come out en masse. In the case of wasps, you just have to wait a day or two for them to leave. Ladybugs take longer.

So the next time they emerge, don’t call me. Especially if you’re the new owner of the Piedmont House or any other wood-paneled building.

This was originally published in The Emerald City of the South, a Little Rock paper that sometimes came out three or four times a year. It references some of the severe weather Little Rock experienced on the fateful night of January 21st, 1999. It also references local past weather that has no bearing on you, reality, or those twinkies you forgot you hid under the bed.

 

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 3-9-11

STORMY WEATHER 101

 Funnel cloud near Mayflower, Arkansas, the last one whut I ever tooked a pitcher of

Remember 2009? It was the coolest year on record, with the most rain ever recorded in central Arkansas. How about the summer of 2010? One of the hottest years to date. And though I haven’t seen the statistics, I’ll bet this winter was one of the coldest and snowiest.

My conclusion?

The weather is out to eat you alive, and you’d better be ready for spring.

Some of you may know that I am a stormchaser; this does not make me any money, but it does make me a weather-informed individual. You should be, too, because like it or not you live in Tornado Alley. Little Rock may not be Oklahoma City, but we certainly get our share of the severe stuff, and the season has already started. I will forgo my admonishments and normal tongue-clucking mock-superiority (mock? Surely you jest!) to give you a primer on severe weather.

Some of you may remember January 21^st 1999; that was the night of the downtown tornado. It is reported that over seven hundred homes in the MacArthur Park and Governor’s Mansion Historic Districts were damaged (more if you look outside the Districts) and many hundreds were destroyed. It still amazes me that only three people died that night, but there had been a lot of warnings all afternoon, so I guess we were as ready as we could have been.

I am also not alone in my opinion that the tornado was, in some ways, good for the downtown. Those who lost loved ones or property will undoubtedly disagree, but I speak of the downtown as a whole. The trees that came down, magnificent as they were, were going to do so one at a time; old willow oaks are known for weakening as they hollow out. Everyone got new roofs, the streetlights increased threefold, and people learned to plant more willow oaks as opposed to Bradford Pears or silver maples, neither of which are good in the long run. Maple root systems heave sidewalks and foundations, and Bradford Pears, outside of a few weeks in the spring and fall, are rather dirty and boring trees. They are also weak, prone to splitting, and they don’t tend to live as long or give as much shade as the traditional white or red oaks.

There are several things I’d recommend to old-home dwellers regarding preparation for storms, much of it gleaned from what I saw that fateful night twelve years ago. Other things I have picked up along the Chasing / Restoration Road.

My backyard on Center Street was filled with record albums, furniture, and memorabilia that had been, minutes before the tornado, quietly residing in people’s attics. The attic is the most readily - damaged part of a house in a tornado; you should stash your most important documents, photos, and sentimental junk in closets on lower floors.

Windows were smashed and broken all over town, as flying debris is the number one cause of damage in a tornado. But many of the windows that didn’t get broken allowed water to flow under them in the sideways rain that pummeled us from the southwest. This is always a good reason to get up on my soapbox and tout the effectiveness, historic value, and “greenness” of covering your original windows with storm windows. I know you think that replacement windows are better, but they are not. Yes, they may have a slightly higher R-value, an  there might be tax credits available, but storm windows preserve your original fabric as well as protect it from anything short of missiles. If your home is on The National Register of Historic Places (or you hope it someday will be), you cannot always replace those windows. And if you really want to be green, think of what manufacturing replacements and disposing of the old windows takes. Go with storms. Be sure to properly glaze and paint your old windows first.

Go out in your yard and look for tree limbs that endanger your house. Not just the dead ones, either. Eighty per cent of the storms in The Rock come out of the northwest, west, or southwest, so think about how your tree might fall when they do. Remove dangerous limbs before the storm drops them through your roof, and pay particular attention to any limbs overhanging your main electrical line. I can’t tell you how many meter loops and breaker boxes I have to reattach to homes after storms  have detached them, and it almost always runs near a thousand dollars.

If your downspouts (you DO have gutters, don’t you? They are CLEAN during storm season, aren’t they??) drain to an underground conduit, make sure the drains are not clogged. Otherwise the water backs up to the gutters, overflows, and tears them right off your house. After flooding your eaves, of course.

Know where to go in your home during tornado warnings; if there is no basement, designate a central hallway or interior room in which to ride out the storm. Tiled bathrooms are often good choices due to the plumbing and reinforced walls. Keep flashlights handy and a weather radio with fresh batteries on hand. A local portable radio is also a good idea.

If you want to keep up with the weather via your computer, add these sites to your favorites list. Stormchasers and weather weenies alike use them.

www.intellicast.com

This has the best radar with the most detail. Explore the site and learn to use the ‘pan and zoom’ feature.

www.spc.noaa.gov/products

This is The Storm Prediction Center, run by NOAA. It will tell you many days in advance of approaching systems and how dangerous they are. Meteorologists, chasers, and weenies live by their predictions. It updates every seven hours. Keep informed!

http://weather.unisys.com

Unisys is the site I use for basic weather forecasting, and it must be pretty good, because pilots and other flying types depend on it for their flight plans.

So, keep informed, get a plan and a weather kit together, look at your trees and gutters, and consider storm windows. And if you get rain blown on your porch, sweep it off immediately, otherwise you’ll be calling me to fix it when it rots. And you don’t want that, now do you, precious?

Got a question, a gripe, or want to take me to dinner? I can be reached at king.oldhousedoctor@gmail.com.

 

 

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE AUGUST 2013

A question posed by a reader to the "Ask the Expert" column.
In "Ask the Expert," (I allus referred to it as "Axe the Eggspurt"), I shared the weekly forum with several other columnists, all contractors, some with a less developed sense of the prosaic than myself. Why Linda Calliouette (psic) let me write for her at all, I dunno. Hey Linda! Let's get a drink! I don't care who you're married to!
E.B. White spinning again..






DETERMINING ORIGINAL PAINT SCHEMES ON QUEEN ANNE STRUCTURES

(AND CHOOSING WISELY)

My husband and I just bought a Queen Anne Victorian house in a historic district and the exterior is in need a of new coat of paint. We want to paint it in historically accurate hues. What's the best resources to turn to to make this decision? Thanks in advance!

To which I replied:

Queen Anne style homes are sometimes referred to as “Painted Ladies,” as they’re original paint schemes were often multi-hued. We at CM Construction paint a lot of these, as they are quite numerous in downtown Little Rock’s Quapaw Quarter. The clapboard siding is often one color, window sashes another, and fishscale shingles a third. Accent colors are often used on window trim, corner medallions, and the fancier parts of porch column turnings. Keep in mind that this is a rather simplistic explanation, and that some homes have much more elaborate color schemes.

There are a number of ways to determine what is right for your own home. The first thing to do is to drive around your local historic district and see what other people have done to their Queen Annes. Treatments of these structures range from a simple monochrome to vivid multi-hues; your own tastes will determine the scope you want to use. The places for accents I mentioned above are the most common, and certain rules are universal.

Foundation brick, if unpainted, should remain unpainted. This is true of all brick; paint will cause brick to fail earlier than it would normally due to moisture retention. If the foundation brick is painted a strange color, it should either be stripped or be painted brick red.  Original sheet metal porch roofs are nearly always painted brick red (ironic, don’t you think?), though they are seldom visible from the street. Wood porch floors are usually a light gray and porch ceilings were often painted sky blue back in the day. This is said to deter wasps from building nests there.

There are several good books on the subject of painting Queen Anne homes, including an excellent pictorial series called “America’s Painted Ladies.” Perusing these will give you a great overview and will narrow your choices to what you want and what looks good versus what is too gaudy for your tastes. Keep in mind this rule; just because you can add more tiers to your paint schedule doesn’t mean you should.

We at CM Construction often do historic preservation as opposed to restoration, and that requires a lot of research into original structure, field archaeology, and investigation of original paint colors. There are high-priced companies that do this as well, but I learned to do it myself over twenty years ago.

My favorite method is to choose a number of places where differing colors might have been used (see the first paragraph for which components to test) and using sandpaper, bring spots on those components down to bare wood. It’s best to start with 80 grit and work to higher numbered, finer grits successively, ending with 220. Using an oscillating or ¼ sheet sander (not a belt sander) sand a circular spot about the size of a quarter, and once bare wood is reached, concentrate on hand-sanding the edges of the paint that surround that circle. You’ll want to feather those edges to create a slightly angled shallow divot; this will expose many tiny layers of old paint. The final step is to use a magnifying glass or jeweler’s loupe to examine those layers up close. Wetting the spot will help to bring out the colors. You’ll be amazed at the information gleaned from examining these layers, and trust me, one of the middle levels of paint will undoubtedly be a light green, which was extremely popular in the 1950s. Everything was painted Institutional Green back then.

Ick.

Once the colors have been decided upon, the slight divots can be skimmed and sanded and no one will know better. But if it was me, I’d varnish one of these sections and leave it as a window on the past.

Then you can paint. Keep in mind that painting is 70% preparation, 10% high quality paint, and 20% proper application.

CM Construction has been repainting Queen Annes as well as other historic structures in Arkansas for decades. Go to www.cmconstructioninc.com to learn more.

Then get some sandpaper and get to work on those components. I promise that you’ll learn as well as have fun.