Hazards: Mold and Budgets (Reno Tales: Part 3)

Ok, budget-blowing time: I ended up with a huge mess in my living room. I had planned to just put up new drywall, and mostly be able to throw things out in my normal trash. Moldy insulation, rotten wood, all the drywall down, windows replaced — these things meant I got a nice big 30 yard dumpster in my front yard for all of it. $500 down — a third of my original budget.

I talked to the disposal company about hazardous materials (mold and fiberglass) in the dumpster. The disposal company I chose was Brazos Valley Recycling, because they sort out the things that come in and work to recycle as much of it as they can before they transfer the remains to the city dump. Their prices are the same as the dump. As far as a bunch of moldy insulation goes, they didn’t have a problem with it. If it didn’t go straight to the dump, any recycling would take care of the mold. Their employees also wore personal protective equipment.

I originally had wanted a 20 yard dumpster, but they didn’t have any, so they sent me a 30 yard dumpster for the price of a 20 yard dumpster. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one, but a 30 yard dumpster is big.

Another cost that I hadn’t counted on, but was related to that moldy insulation, was respirators for my helpers and I. We went with ‘real’ respirators.

If I was going to do it again, I would’ve probably gone with a full mask for at least myself to keep crud from getting in my eyes.

At $30 each, though, the masks added another hundred dollars — a lot more expensive than simple dust masks, but at least my friends/helpers are safe.

Mold Mitigation Inside

I’m not a pro with mold mitigation, but after doing some research on the internets, it seemed straightforward. For my limited areas where there had been mold exposure, as long as I was ventilating them properly, killing the mold once was enough. Again, I’m not a professional — don’t take my word for it.

 

For mold mitigation inside, I ended up using bleach and then Simple Green Pro 3 as mitigation products. The bleach should kill most everything, but I wanted something that would linger for a while. The Simple Green seemed to fit the bill according to the product packaging.

After cleaning the insulation out of the cold roof and below the clerestory windows, I sprayed bleach on the wood with a garden sprayer, let it dry, and then sprayed the Simple Green on. I let both dry.

And Wood Rot…

Around the fireplace, there was an area where the wood had gotten a bit rotten during the many years the roof had been leaking. The rot wasn’t bad enough that I needed to replace any of it (even according to the city inspector, who I had do a structural inspection after I exposed everything) — I just needed to stop any dry rot that might start.

There’s two types of products that I’ve worked with to do this. One is basically bondo — epoxy wood replacer. That didn’t apply because I didn’t need to replace anything that had been removed. I ended up just using Minwax Wood Hardener. It needs to be applied with a brush while wearing gloves, but it basically penetrates and crystallizes the wood. Note that the Elmers product that’s labeled similarly is NOT the same thing — use the Minwax.

Add – Order!

At this point, now that I’d gone from ‘minor’ to ‘major’ renovation, I decided that I was going to really do it up a bit and add can lighting to the ceiling. After a few false starts, I managed to locate a low-profile insulated cavity can light that would fit in my 8 inch rafters with space to spare.

Why IC? Well, the cold roof is insulated. If you have a can light that’s going to go in a place where there’s insulation in the roof, you have to have the right kind of can light. IC can lights have two features — first, they don’t depend on ventilating upwards. Second, they have a temperature sensor in them so that they shut down if they get too hot — before they set your house on fire.

Also, I decided I wanted to add sconces to the wall above the buffet. I already have the sconces, so all I need to do is add one switch and two mounts to the wall.

The can lights, wire, and dimmers added about $500 to the cost of the project.

Permits

I noticed something the other day. I was watching DIY Network, and with all the renovations they were doing to people’s houses (or watching people do to their own), they NEVER mentioned permits. HGTV mentions them all the time. Do you need a permit if you’re “just” punching a hole in the wall? Yes, you need a permit!

On top of that, you need a permit for the electrical work I was doing. And not only do you need a permit, but you need to bring existing areas up to code. In my city, they required me to install wired smoke alarms in each bedroom and a combination wired smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detector in the hallway.

I was lucky that I managed to not have to run an entire new circuit for these. What’s that about new circuits? Well, you can only have ten devices on any circuit in your house by my city’s current electric code. Switches, outlets, lighting, fans… ten. I had a bedroom that had six devices on it, and I could wire four more on. But that cascaded into needing an arc fault circuit breaker ($50) for that circuit. On the other hand, I could use the circuit breaker that I pulled out to run a circuit for the can lights and sconces in the living room — 8 outlets and 2 switches required an entire new run.

Permits cost me a total of $80 (cheap for the cost of the advice that I got), the smoke alarms cost $120 and the carbon monoxide $60, wire and boxes for those cost another $50, the arc fault breaker cost $60, the electrician cost $150 to come change the breakers out (a task I’d never done before and one I wanted to observe before I messed with…) — about another $500, which means I’m currently passing my original budget without having purchased drywall or insulation.

What can I say except, “Oops…”?