Lime
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When are the criminal charges going to be made on those that laid tiles on such a floor?
- Thread starter Pford75
- Start date
My thoughts exactly.....and you should have seen the tiles!!! Think 'Youth detention centre flooring' with curled corners like day old sandwiches. They were red(ish) with black streaks (I assume this was a 50's interpretation of 'marbled'). Truly, truly hideous.
And considering that it's only taken me 1.5 days to get the floor back to this state....with apx £50 on sander and oil.....it's probably a lot cheaper than the tiles!¬
Flyfisher
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Is there some sort of wet sanding method that you could use? This would prevent any asbestos fibres from becoming airborne, which is the real danger.
The official HSE advice is to avoid sanding at all. But i'm not sure what you are supposed to do if you're left with adhesive and tile backing stuck to your lovely 200yr old floorboards.
If I had known from the start that these were definately asbestos, i'm not sure what I would have done differently. My wife/kids were away, the doors were all taped up, I used a respirator (not just a dust mask). Damping down might have been an option....but the HSE is all out on suggestions on what to do if you uncover asbestos and can't afford 00's of £'s to have someone come and remove it. (and I'm not sure that they would agree to sand it anyway)
If I had known from the start that these were definately asbestos, i'm not sure what I would have done differently. My wife/kids were away, the doors were all taped up, I used a respirator (not just a dust mask). Damping down might have been an option....but the HSE is all out on suggestions on what to do if you uncover asbestos and can't afford 00's of £'s to have someone come and remove it. (and I'm not sure that they would agree to sand it anyway)
Penners
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Presumably you're talking about a seat within the bay, and you want something to sit on? I can only say that, personally, I would paint it the same colour as the window itself - presumably white? For my taste, that would look right. Then I would make a tailored cushion to put on top of this.Pford75 said:
However, if you definitely want clear-finished wood, I think I would avoid oiling it. Oil can remain transferrable from wooden seat to white linen trousers for a surprisingly long time.
As to the choice of wood, I've always been fond of ash. It's very durable, and has a bold grain. If you can inspect the piece you buy before doing so, you'll find that the colour and figure can be almost anything you like (except bland). Sapwood is quite creamy honey coloured, while heart can vary in colour a fair bit. If you want a fairly uniform piece I would choose sapwood, which (if you like) you can stain to whatever depth of colour you want.
If you're finishing it in a clear finish, I would choose an acrylic varnish, which is about as colourless as you can get.
Here's a fine piece of ash:
Thought it worth an update on progress....
Having removed the ghastly vinyl floor tiles, and the adhesive residue from the floor...I was faced with removing the dark wax/stain/varnish (not really sure what it was, but it was very patchy and on the surface of the boards only and could not be removed with a light sanding as it clogged the paper). I spoke with strippers and they recommended a trial of their NB-510 stripper which has done a great job. It has not damaged the surface of the boards and nor do they look like brand new sanded boards. It's basically just lightened them by several shades by removing most (but not all) of the dark product. Applying was easy and I left it for apx 24 hrs....I then scooped up as much of the stripper as possible using a shovel...before then washing with warm water and brushing vigorously with a stiff broom.
The bay window was still covered in the asbestos backing from the tiles and lots of adhesive. I tried some klingstrip and this worked a treat. Basically I plastered it on really thick to cover all of the asbestos and left it covered in plastic for apx. 3 days. When I then removed it, the asbestos and adhesive had sort of liquidised (obviously I was using full protective equipment this time). This has left me with a lovely original pine surface in the bay, which as Penners suggests I now intend to paint (I originally didnt think it was going to be possible to save this).
So, my tip is to try klingstrip on adhesive...it did the trick for me. Although I must have miscalculated on my quantities, as I have rather a lot of unused klingstrip (beginning to wonder how many bin bags I would need to cover the front elevation of the house :wink: )
Having removed the ghastly vinyl floor tiles, and the adhesive residue from the floor...I was faced with removing the dark wax/stain/varnish (not really sure what it was, but it was very patchy and on the surface of the boards only and could not be removed with a light sanding as it clogged the paper). I spoke with strippers and they recommended a trial of their NB-510 stripper which has done a great job. It has not damaged the surface of the boards and nor do they look like brand new sanded boards. It's basically just lightened them by several shades by removing most (but not all) of the dark product. Applying was easy and I left it for apx 24 hrs....I then scooped up as much of the stripper as possible using a shovel...before then washing with warm water and brushing vigorously with a stiff broom.
The bay window was still covered in the asbestos backing from the tiles and lots of adhesive. I tried some klingstrip and this worked a treat. Basically I plastered it on really thick to cover all of the asbestos and left it covered in plastic for apx. 3 days. When I then removed it, the asbestos and adhesive had sort of liquidised (obviously I was using full protective equipment this time). This has left me with a lovely original pine surface in the bay, which as Penners suggests I now intend to paint (I originally didnt think it was going to be possible to save this).
So, my tip is to try klingstrip on adhesive...it did the trick for me. Although I must have miscalculated on my quantities, as I have rather a lot of unused klingstrip (beginning to wonder how many bin bags I would need to cover the front elevation of the house :wink: )