Help cure sick house; it's very bad.

October 8, 2008 12:05 AM

Is house permanently destroyed by paint toxins? Please Help! (Long explanation, but no way around that.)

This is for my friend, a wonderful sculptor who loves her frame home/studio (built 1916) here in Seattle. Now she is really screwed over, cause she was fumigated out of her home by improper paint; she is highly reactive to the chemicals in the paint. This all happened about about one year ago in basement. Basement has daylite windows and is usually quite dry. NOTE: this is not about culpability and lawsuits, only about whether anyone has been thru this and has a brainstorm or insight for fixing the house so she can move back in happily.

FACTS: Benjamin Moore, Moorcraft, super spec, industrial exterior paint #166. Applied very thickly (somewhat dripping) to concrete basement interior walls, and part of the wood ceiling joists and subfloor. 12 hours later it was all sprayed over with an equal amount of interior latex -- also Ben. Moore super spec , but interior paint. So it never cured properly. She later went over the joists and subfloor area with acrylic primer and latex interior paint. (Not sure why she did that.)

To mitigate, she heated and ventilated when the house heat went on last fall, and she turned it up as high as possible, for a week. The paint off-gassed, so the vapors toxified the upstairs as well. The area has been ventilating for a year now. Still no good. She tried to strip a small area of the concrete walls with a non-toxic stripping agent, designed for chemically sensitive indivuals, but it was very ineffective. It got most of the evil paint, but not the older paint below. An industrial hygenist (IH) and painters have said that a commercial stripper will be 2 times as toxic as the paint. Also, that the substrate may have absorbed the product, so even if it is removed it may be off-gassing for some time. Two IH's thus said blast the stuff out. A paint coating expert recommended sealing with acrylic barrier rating of #1. Benjamin Moore tech support recommended painting over the water-based paint with an acrylic or oil, to seal. But apparently she did not like that idea. All 3 IH’s recommended heating and ventilation. But it didn’t get hot enough in the basement even with heat up full for a week.

Had testing done in June, by a very highly recommended IH, who is a Ph.D in chemistry. Some slightly elevated levels of voc's ( this is after a year of ventilation, voc's greater in the basement, where the paint was applied) He, and one other IH, both recommended sandblasting. He poo-poo'd sealing or further heating. The Ph.D. recommended planing the joist faces and then blasting under negative pressure with a hepa filter. He also said that since her symptoms are so extreme, she should just sell (w/ full disclosure).

Builders have not liked the idea of sandblasting… that it might not get done properly and/or make an enourmous dust mess. The IH said that if she blasts, there may be only a 23% chance of living in the house again, due to the severity of her symptoms.

ANY CHANCE NOTION THAT HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD WILL BE WELCOME.

posted by yazi to Health & Fitness (12 answers total)

Chance Notion #1: In addition to water and oil based paints, there is also epoxy based paints. It's had to imagine that it wouldn't seal anything, although who knows if that might irritate her as well.

It's sounding like the real life version of The Cat and the Hat Comes Back in your friends house. It might be time to sell. :(
posted by No New Diamonds Please at 1:36 AM on October 8, 2008

Had testing done in June, by a very highly recommended IH, who is a Ph.D in chemistry. [...] He, and one other IH, both recommended sandblasting.

So why not do that?

If you can't find builders willing to do it, ask the IH to refer you to someone.
posted by Mike1024 at 4:25 AM on October 8, 2008

Part of the problem seems to be that your friend has asked too many experts. Their approaches vary, and she doesn't know whose advice to take. At the risk of worsening that situation, my thought is that all these approaches boil down to either removing the paint or sealing it in. I'd be inclined to strike a middle ground by stripping most of it (not every nook and cranny, but most of it) and then having everything repainted with a benign product by a company that knows what it's doing.

As to removing the existing coatings, one method that hasn't been mentioned is an infrared paint stripper, which I first read about in a Mother Earth News article about exterior house painting. They're pricey (~$400) but seem to hold their value well and can be re-sold on ebay. Set her up with one of those, a good respirator, some putty knives and a fan in the window and turn her loose.
posted by jon1270 at 7:28 AM on October 8, 2008

all these approaches boil down to either removing the paint or sealing it in

What about one last try at ventilating? Get several huge industrial fans, and set them up so the air has a way in and a way out. Other fans pointed directly at painted surfaces. Also apply heat. If you need to stop the fans to get the heat up, so be it, but use heaters to get the temperature up over 90 degrees.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:59 AM on October 8, 2008

Sandblasting, actually media blasting, with a gentle media like walnut shells will remove the paint. If it's the "chemical" nature of the blasting media that concerns your friend then maybe walnut media will be acceptable. You can even media blast the joists (it was a decorative effect used on wood work at one time) with no planing necessary though she may end up needing to scab the joist afterwords. Unlikely though as most 90 year old houses that are still standing in good shape have over sized framing.

A good dust collector setup outside (say 3hp unit capable of 1500-1800 cfm on a 6 inch flex hose) setup to completely encircle the sandblasting nozzle will get _all_ the dust being generated by sandblasting.

"All 3 IH’s recommended heating and ventilation. But it didn’t get hot enough in the basement even with heat up full for a week."

Electric space heating in the basement would raise the local temperature. You can rent large commercial units that plug into dryer or oven receptacles. Unless her basement resembles a poorly sealed tent she should be able to get the temp up to 100F degrees with one or two of these units. A HRV can then ventilate the space while minimizing the heat loss due to ventilation. Permanent installation of the unit would help mitigate any lingering VOCs.
posted by Mitheral at 8:04 AM on October 8, 2008

But it didn’t get hot enough in the basement even with heat up full

Since all this ventilating is going on, perhaps she could add one or more gas-fired heaters, such as the turbo-jet styled salamander heaters used at construction sites.
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:06 AM on October 8, 2008

Many thanks, so far. I'll keep watching today and tomorrow.
posted by yazi at 8:27 AM on October 8, 2008

At a year+, the paint is well past the first half-lives of voc outgassing. You'll continue to see low levels for a long time to come with no corrective action. Sealing is more appropriate for non-volatile problems like lead. VOC sources I would prefer to remove.

So, ditto Mitheral's solution (and the last IH). Media blasting (I've had bean casings used as well) is much less damaging to structures than silica/sand. Dust management in a basement shouldn't be a big problem. this isn't going to be cheap though.

I'm not an IH, just a chemist who deals with contaminated site remediation. Broad strokes are similar, but not identical to residential clean-up. That said, your last expert's advice sounds very credible to me.
posted by bonehead at 9:16 AM on October 8, 2008

I am not an expert by any means but maybe you need the simplest answer to your question. If the paint is causing the trouble then remove it. I would then get a non-toxic/something that won't bother your friend sealer and then seal up the basement. The sealer should lock in anything that was left. Also venting the house with huge fans might be a good idea too.
posted by Mastercheddaar at 9:41 AM on October 8, 2008

Another good media blasting solution is to use Dry Ice. They specifically make Dry Ice blasters and would GREATLY reduce the dust because the media itself does not create any dust. The only dust that would be created would be from the paint coming off. I have seen it used on This Old House to blast some joists so it would not damage them.
posted by kasperj74 at 2:12 PM on October 8, 2008

Is the issue that there is paint in the basement that would make anyone sick, or that she has a special sensitivity so that she is being made sick by something almost nobody else would care about? If it's the latter, sell and move.

Has she actually been tested for sensitivity to the compounds in the paint, or is she just assuming that it's the paint b/c it happened after the new paint? I mean, it would be terrible if she something expensive and it didn't get better b/c she's actually reacting to mold, not paint.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:35 PM on October 8, 2008

I leave tomorrow on a trip, so I won't have time to check for a while. I mailed the link to my friend. I like that last warning, from ROU. Thanks, it's something my friend might think about. Much appreciation to the community!
posted by yazi at 5:14 PM on October 8, 2008