Because you can pee right there while watching TV?
So you just watch the urine collect around your feet?
Nothing beats dirt.
Chickens *eat* dirt.
I've always wanted to walk a nightingale floor.
But this carpet hatred of all carpets ever, and fetishization of sparse wood floors with a rug here and there: mark my words, this will mark your home as painfully '10, and you won't even realize it. Carpet is coming back. I bet the hipsters already have it.
If it's trendy, it's been trendy for more than 30 years in the places I've lived.
And if there is only wood floor and no rugs whatsoever, then your house looks like you live at The Gap.
I've always wanted to walk a nightingale floor.
I have. It was like the floors in my 100-year-old house, but finely tuned and with nicer sound.
That is, if it's light newish wood. I forget about older northern houses, since there aren't any around here. I suspect that's part of 8.
You know what are nice? Stone floors.
Pumice floors keep your bare feet nicely exfoliated, and are also useful if you want to polish up any little books you have lying around.
You know what are nice? Stone trampoline floors.
BounceBounceBounceBounce
They wear holes in my socks, though.
13: there are plenty of buildings with stone floors that aren't castles. But yes, I bet castles have lovely stone floors.
I don't really mean marble floors, I should be clear. Big ol' worn slabs of stone: very nice on the feet, and very attractive.
You know what's definitely coming back? Carpeted walls.
I'm trying to think of non-gross looking carpet (assuming you mean wall-to-wall) and am coming up blank.
Being rolled up in a carpet and thrown off a bridge is the new drinking too much and choking on your vomit.
You know what's definitely coming back? Carpeted walls.
It's fun to watch the cats defy gravity. Also if it's a bit burlappy then you can get felt cut-outs and tell stories right there on the walls. Win-win-win.
10: I wonder how specifically tuned such a floor could be and how long it could be expected to remain in tune.
I seem to recall one of Douglas Adams' books (one of the Dirk Gently novels?*) describing varnished wooden floors as a mark of tastes formed by "student living."
* Go to hell. I was in my early teens.
* Go to hell. I was in my early teens.
We're supposed to be embarrassed about reading those?
Well, crap.
Anyhow it wasn't the varnished wooden floors per se, as the varnished wooden floors in dialogue with the framed prints and tastefully dried flowers.
And, um, shut up.
I love stone floors. Particularly nice in Spanish or Tudor Revivals.
There was a house I looked at when I was hunting that had the most awesome feature ever: a bomb shelter that was covered (including the walls) in suspiciously stained orange shag carpteting, and had hi-fi stereo speakers built into the walls. 1970s redo of the 1950s bomb shelter.
Unfortunately the rest of the house sucked, but I would have really loved to own my own pimp grotto.
I think of berber as a non-gross looking carpet. It's a no-go with clawed pets, though.
You know what flooring is amazing? Terazzo. I am mildly obsessed with terazzo.
Dirt probably has a lot of nice thermal properties, plus if it were deep enough you could grow stuff.
I have no shame about reading deep into the Douglas Adams oeuvre, but I will bashfully admit that trying to write like him had to be beaten out of me in my first college fiction writing class.
Dirt probably has a lot of nice thermal properties
Probably even better if you just live in a dugout.
I have no love for carpet and never have. It is a source of great convenience for me that tastes are currently in sync with this lack of carpet love. Crummy pergo floors aren't nice, though, either.
I don't think living in a canoe would be very comfortable, Blume.
However, I know that there are people who build houses underground or in hills, even some people not at all associated with Roger Dean, and I have to admit, they look cozy.
Berber is indeed OK, and also indeed not a good fit with cats.
re: 13/18
One of my Dad's friends used to have a castle. I have memories of the floors being cold and damp [in the tiny part of it that he lived in].
Someone created a photo album here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/FKunder/TorwoodCastleJuly2009#
Castles: probably really drafty to boot.
There was a house in Connecticut that I knew when I was a kid that was largely built of stone, with flagstone floors throughout the first floor. It always smelled like a hearth fire and had a name and was located in a small enough town that mail didn't need (back then) a street address.
When last I heard the house had been sold and crassly renovated.
I bet the dungeon isn't as drafty and would have nice dirt floors, neb.
29: From the wikipedia entry on terazzo:
Newly-set terrazzo will not look like marble unless it is wet. That's where the goat's milk comes in, acting as a sealer and preserving the wet and marble-like look.
"That's where the goat's milk comes in" just cracks me up, and I thought I would share. You're welcome.
Have I linked this here before?
One of my friends in nursery school and kindergarten lived in the above-linked fake castle. We would drift around in the swimming pool moat and check out the fake suits of armour. BEST HOUSE EVER OF ALL TIME.
Dirt probably has a lot of nice thermal properties....
You really ought first to put down an insulating layer of dead leaves, grass, pine needles, etc. Take it from a guy who learned the hard way that hugging a tree stump for warmth just makes you colder.
We have a nearby castle built by very rich people. I can't ever convince a large enough group to storm it that our odds would be good. Shame, really.
Then plug in your electric guitar and record some Jewelled Antler–style arboreal psych.
I don't think living in a canoe would be very comfortable, Blume.
I also disrecommend living in a marijuana container or in close quarters with a baseball team.
24: Also if it's a bit burlappy then you can get felt cut-outs and tell stories right there on the walls
Several of the rooms in Life: A User's Manual were described as having "hessian" on the walls which seems to be burlap (maybe more like a burlap-y wallpaper?) Is this still common anywhere? And the name seems to come from its being used at some point in the uniforms of soldiers from Hesse. Comfy!
45: Or the wheel well of a jumbo jet.
This is not my jumbo jet. These are not my pitchers. How did I get here?
I certainly hope you don't have water flowing underground in your dugout, nosflow. Sounds rather muddy.
10: I wonder how specifically tuned such a floor could be and how long it could be expected to remain in tune.
Perhaps I should have written 'engineered'. Unlike my floors, which presumably were not designed to creak but could probably serve the same security function.
Sounds more like a risk for subsidence to me.
50: I should think the ninja-conscious homeowner would be very conscious of the engineering of his or her floors.
Flippanter, modeling the proper use of "should" and "would"! WTG, dude.
Flippanter, modeling the proper use of "should" and "would"!
Ladies....
"I shall subside, no one will subsidize me!" cried the fearful man. "I will subside, no shall subsidize me!" replied the defiant one. (I think.)
"no one shall".
FUCK FUCK*$#&%)*SACDF)S*$R%#"S)
we756asf,khafds][254DJ**#*@_)*!*80%%&)W!!!!
All the rich SWPL and your luxuries like floors.
We salt-of-the-earth real Amurricans have to sell our dirt floors to Tyson for chicken feed.
A friend and I were once drunkenly speculating on the possibility of a house in space with no floors. (Wait, I've told this story here before—oh well!) We were contemplating how that would work, when we both hit upon the answer simultaneously in a "Eureka!" moment: "Magnets!" It still cracks me up.
Whatever supports you as you walk is the floor, Stanley.
36: It seems very nice, but kind of small for a castle.
Anyway, our whole house, excepting the tiled bathrooms, has wood floors and I don't see us carpeting anything. We do have a rug that covers about 90% of the floor in the kid room.
I certainly hope you don't have water flowing underground in your dugout, nosflow. Sounds rather muddy.
We call it a "grotto" around here.
Are Stanley's legs the floor?
As President Lincoln said, Stanley's legs are long enough to reach Stanley's legs.
Hessian is burlap, yeah. Artists' studios sometimes have it on the walls (or the dividers).
The best NOFX song is about flooring.
The original post is completely correct and I have definitive proof. My current apartment is all wood floors, and generally when I adopt a trend, it's because the trend has reached its end.
Huh, timely. New place has nasty old carpet in the bedrooms that needs to be replaced with either new carpet or something non-carpet, and we were thinking of something that looks like what comes up in a Google search for Berber carpet images, but if it's not cat-approved that isn't going to work. Which is OK, because I really don't like carpet, and I'm just not going to get stressed about what Heebie may think of me.
69: We're going on 8 years having this debate about our upstairs that has nasty carpets. Occasionally I feel guilty about it when my mom or someone rags on us about our lack of progress. Then the cat throws up on them for the umpteenth time and I 'm content to wait.
OUr house wood. It would be good to carpet kids' though. Wood gets dents when they hammer with their stupid little toy hammers. Although it's harder to clean grape juices out of carpets, so MAYBE ITS a wash.
Stone floors are c-c-c-old. But I have to admit that in the summer that cold feels nice.
I am hardwood all the way. I can tolerate carpet in other people's houses, like I can tolerate air conditioning. But I wouldn't want to have to live with it.
71: Btock has discovered interesting local products.
Our house wood. Our car metal and plastic-stuff.
11: I forget about older northern houses, since there aren't any around here.
Apparently it's a regional thing. I haven't lived in a non-wood-floor house for 20 years. Wood floors are timeless, not trendy. Sorry heebie.
That's not to say people can't disprefer wood floors. I always figured: hey, with wood floors you can swap out the rug if you want or need to, while with carpeting you have to go through all this *hassle* to do that. How do you change your room's decor, I ask you?
If only we could cover our floors with stand mixers.
We could stand on floors at mixers.
If you must cover your wood floors, well-worn Oriental carpets are acceptable.
We could stand on floors at mixers.
No cocktail parties, though.
80: Thanks. I got shit for my worn Oriental carpets recently. (Excuse me, I realize the sorta fringe along that edge is kind of ragged. Do you have a *problem* with that? I suppose you have carpeting.)
Next big trend: pleated pants made of carpet. You heard it here first.
We have also have a very nice foam rubber ABC floor mat, which is almost as classy as an inherited hand-tied oriental rug. Also, more flexible since it comes apart into 25 squares ('I' and 'J' share a single square).
If you must cover your wood floors, well-worn Oriental carpets are acceptable.
Jesus is Dave Matthews? I had no idea you were a local. (Flooring at 29 seconds, for those that wish not to abide Mr. Matthews.)
Wood floors are timeless, not trendy.
I have to agree.
I don't like carpet very much at all. I'll admit that there is some nice carpet out there, but it tends to be expensive and high-maintenance. I guess I associate nice carpet with the kind of sparse minimalism (an all-white living room, e.g.) that is unsuitable for those with children and/or pets.
Does it take away from Heebie's point if I mention that pleated pants are huge right now?
pleated pants are huge right now
The pleats are what give them so much volume. No unpleated pant will be as huge as its pleated counterpart!
84: Then carpets made out of pleated pants.
I absolutely adore the main picture that's posted on this wiki article right now.
I resist the notion that the carpet/wood floors debate is a matter as fickle and chained to fashion trends as that over pleated vs. non-pleated pants.
Boo, carpet. Nothing made my mom more uptight around the house than getting light carpeting in the family room. I don't get the urge to decorate one's home in such a way that living in it becomes stressful.
On the other hand, we've got bare wood and tile now, and it's kind of echoey.
Dave Matthews, you say? Never heard of him.
Wood floors forever!
When I close my eyes and let my mind wander, I sometimes longingly and lovingly decorate a fanciful loft apartment with pristine, un-scuffed wood floors and the occasional tasteful area rug.
Ahhhhhh.
96: Allow me to share a cautionary tale posted previously.
25: Insofar as I can recall, the three deaths in literature I have cried at were (um, spoiler alert) that of Jude Fawley, that of one of the characters in Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate, and of Marvin the Paranoid Android in I guess So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. Um, I guess telling this story this far downthread runs the risk of sounding like I wanted to tell it anyway and it wasn't so much dragged out of me.
86: The appeal of Dave Matthews continues to elude me. I guess the carpet is okay.
100: I direct your attention to 98, Kobe.
99: I cried at Marvin's death too.
28: I nearly rented a house in Eugene which had a room entirely covered in green shag.
67: Not "Fun Things to Fuck?"
I was nearly entrapped by 98, but thanks to a slow-loading link my ears remain virginal with regard to this Matthews person.
104: What? He's on about regretting being a DMB fan. It's hilarious. Load it. Trust me on this one.
98 is excellent, although it doesn't explain much about why he liked them in the first place.
DM: "It was in Charlottesville that he became part of the local music community."
Nobody is ever going to explain what might be appealing about Dave Matthews, teo.
106: An audience of teos would be a comedian's nightmare: "A murmur of concern as to whether the joke was properly motivated rippled through the crowd."
The video in 67 makes me nostalgic for high school. My friends at the time spent a lot of time listening to NOFX and similar bands and watching those skate videos.
To be clear: doing so would be akin to trying to explain to a Bruce Cockburn fan what might be appealing about Alice Cooper.
112: Well, someone has to do it.
113: I'll have to take your word on that one.
Nobody is ever going to explain what might be appealing about Dave Matthews, teo.
The drummer is clearly baller, though the later stuff has him muted a bit. Then again, I'm not a person who has a favorite drummer or a favorite [other instrumentalist], so what do I know?
Is Bruce Cockburn a fan of Alice Cooper? Do skate videos cause brain cancer? Are pleated plants in or out? Find out next time on the carpet show!
m, how to cure all known diseases
If you have wood, it doesn't if the carpet matches the drapes.
When I have wood, I too often find myself incoherent and uninterested in the nuances of interior decorating. Not that I have a lot of data.
Nothing worse than smacking your head on a rock when you go for the low hanging fruit.
Beige. We'll paint the ceiling beige.
Carpet in rental properties is like dropping off your underwear at the laundromat in a big anonymous dumper and then getting a dozen fresh washed ones in a bag.
125: Nice.
And yeah, others in the room seem more attentive to that kind of detail for some reason.
Carpet is fucking disgusting. It traps filth and dirt and filth. It is impossible to keep clean. It looks terrible after about twenty minutes unless you spend all your time vacuuming.
Carpet is modern day rushes on the floor.
Don't tell me you don't like Alice Cooper, parsimon. I refuse to believe it.
i do love everything about this room tho, and it has carpeting: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ouno/3187188910/
I'm pretty much opposed to carpet, and I'm not trendy in the least.
In the Southwest I think that tile with various local-style rugs would look great. Anywhere else, I really don't understand why anyone would want anything other than hard wood floors with oriental rugs, but I was raised that way.
When I was a kid, we had a wood floor kitchen from the 30's. The finish was likely to get worn down and had to be redone from time to time. We had some rope rugs down on the highest traffic areas to reduce the wear.
If you live in a flat [i.e. an apartment] and have people downstairs, wooden floors are a no.
132. Stone floors in apartment blocks are widespread however in warmer climes.
The prejudice here seems to be against fitted carpets, rather than carpets in general. I can get onside with this.
My main problem with carpeting, as opposed to rugs, is that it looks awful once it's not pristine. A wood floor with rugs on it, eh, if the rugs are a little ragged it looks fine. Stained or worn carpeting, on the other hand, looks like hell. We've got rugs in the public spaces of our apartment, but carpet in the bedrooms, and the kids destroyed the carpet in their room in less than ten years -- stains, and spots where they ground the pile off somehow. It's repulsive.
We just switched rooms with the kids -- we're in their old room, and our old room has been cut in two for them, and we put a rug down on top of their nasty carpet to hide it.
128 is correct in all particulars.
If you enjoy cleaning and don't mind living on top of a crud sponge carpet is a good choice.
My ideal flooring would be the sandy epoxy stuff they use in a lot of hospitals. It's non-slip, can be done in a bunch of colors (including fake terrazzo), and if you do the edges right (with a smooth transition between floor and wall) you can run the epoxy flooring up the wall a short distance, so you can literally clean the floor with a hose. Yes, my home design aesthetic is all about minimizing effort. There is something soul-destroyingly futile about the war on dirt. It's like Vietnam, but you're not allowed to use napalm.
Does it take away from Heebie's point if I mention that pleated pants are huge right now?
Doesn't this make my point exactly?
Doesn't this make my point exactly?
It does not, no.
It's like Vietnam, but you're not allowed to use napalm.
What, you have something against dirt floors, too?
My point that people feel passionate hatred against carpet, but this will be a passing whim, and soon will be very popular, is not an apt comparison with pleated pants?
Pleated pants are nice. Unpleated pants are nice. I like pants.
I mean, it's certainly possible that wall-to-wall carpet will again become the go-to decor in new and model homes, but the analogy (besides being banned) isn't really apt -- wall-to-wall was kind of a fad itself, that supplanted the longstanding default flooring, which was hardwood. It's more likely that the new fad will be for something else (not concrete, though: I agree that has probably run its course, although I like it) like terrazo or bamboo or reconstituted plastic shopping bags or who knows.
Hardwood floors are also increasingly expensive (and therefore likely to become increasingly desirable) as the raw materials are becoming more difficult to come by. The advantage of carpet has almost always been that it's cheaper.
Whereas pleating on pants is one of those ephemeral things you can easily change every season (not to mention that they're one of like three available vectors for modifying men's pants, which means they're going to cycle quite often).
Now, if you wanted to talk about stainless kitchen appliances or granite countertops I think you'd be on much firmer ground.
You may not agree that carpet will make a comeback, the way pleated pants have made a comeback. But above, someone said that the resurgence of pleated pants detracted from my point. Which it does not. It was exactly my point.
But it's not exactly your point. It could be analogous to your point, except that analogies are banned, but in any case it's not an exact analogy.
My old school had stone flooring (on the ground floor, anyway). It wasn't technically a castle, but it did have battlements. The story goes that when the Roundheads entered Winchester during the civil war, they wanted to stable the horses in the college, but the then Warden refused. As the college was fairly defensible, they stabled them in the cathedral instead, causing untold damage.
In the future, all the floors will be Slip 'n Slides™, and the people? They will be joyous in their pleated bathing gowns.
I have no strong feelings about flooring/carpeting. This probably has more to do with not having any allergies than anything else. I will say that the brick floors in our house, while beautiful and relatively easy to clean, are probably what's causing the random pains in my feet and knees. Also, playing on the floor with the kids--even when they're covered with rugs--has gotten kinda painful as well.
On the other hand, learning to walk on brick floors toughens your kids right up. Mine shake off blows to the head like linebackers.
150: Sign me up! I want one of those full body Victorian bathing suits, but I want the women's version, with the little skirt. And I want it in paisley, with gold trim.
It's more likely that the new fad will be for something else (not concrete, though: I agree that has probably run its course, although I like it) like terrazo or bamboo or reconstituted plastic shopping bags or who knows.
YOU SHOULD GET HOLD OF A LOT OF LITTLE METAL BOTTLETOPS AND NAIL THEM UPSIDE DOWN TO THE FLOOR.
Have pleated pants ever been away? not worn by hipsters in the coolest bars, sure, but worn.
Sifu's point about granite counter tops contains the seed of its own contradiction. We go grantine counter tops this year because our top requirement was durability, and among durable fabrics it was cheapest. By a country mile. It is, of course, Chinese. So I do think it'll stop being trendy, but I don't think people will stop buying it. Because there's more to stuff like kitchens and floors than just fashion
155: Probably he meant khaki. Some people take it for granite.
156. Makes good bullet proof vests. On D-Day most Brit squaddies were just a bit chipped around the edges.
Also, playing on the floor with the kids--even when they're covered with rugs--has gotten kinda painful as well.
I must admit that spending so much of the past year on the floor has really shaped my opinion of carpet. My favorite places to play with HP are easily the carpeted rooms because it's so much more comfortable to be on the ground.
You know, heebie, if you're really serious about HP becoming a star footballer, that house-wide astroturf should probably be installed, like, yesterday.
Wood floors are plenty comfortable, so long as there's a bit of give to the wood. Concrete and brick, not so much.
I looked into putting bamboo (basically, renewable resource wood) flooring into the one room of my house that needed new flooring. Looks great and was cheap, but got destroyed even faster than carpet. Then my idiot neighbor across the street decided to redo his bedroom and take out his beautiful hardwood floor, so I salvaged his wood and used that instead.
You know what looks great? Wood from old growth forests. I'm glad they're not cutting that anymore, but the old growth wood is probably my favorite thing about my 1913 house.
162.last gets it exactly right.
Hmm, I was considering bamboo for a couple of rooms. Did not know the durability issues were so severe.
Carpet is fucking disgusting. It traps filth and dirt and filth. It is impossible to keep clean. It looks terrible after about twenty minutes unless you spend all your time vacuuming.
This is the advantage of carpet. Nobody's going to vacuum every twenty minutes, so everybody's carpet looks shitty. Wood floors, on the other hand, constantly reproach you with the fact that you could have swept so they look nice, but you didn't. Carpet leads to a comfortable mediocrity that's ultimately freeing. Wood floors are part of the endless, relentless SWPL striving for excellence that will ultimately destroy us all.
162: My mother did my old room at home in bamboo. It looks very pretty but the stuff is obviously quite soft. Of course no one ever is in there, so wev.
Has anyone tried cork? We thought about it for our kitchen, but wound up going with wood. The contractor did a shitty enough job that only five years later I'm considering the various options again.
Has anyone tried cork?
I've seen cork in kitchens after a few years. Don't.
The problem with old growth wood floors is that it's easily cut by heirloom diamonds.
171: Just be sure to put down your mink rugs when you wear your diamond cleats.
I've never noticed that either wall-to-wall carpeting or wood or some other kind of flooring was a fad unique to a peculiar period. I can't tell if it's the kind of thing I'd expect to notice or not. (On the one hand, home furnishings generally aren't. On the other hand, I think I've lived in more and/or a wider variety of houses than most people, counting my time as an exchange student.)
I've never thought about this all that much - carpet is harder to keep clean, but on the other hand is more comfortable, especially to sit on, but on the other hand it's not like I often sit directly on the floor; so for childless SWPL people like me it seems like a slight edge for wood - but I'm starting to look for a new apartment, so I should start. I guess I'd prefer a rug, wall-to-wall or very close to it, in the bedroom and some kind of hard surface in the rest of the place. It's easier to roll out carpets over hard surfaces than to tear up wall-to-wall carpeting, right?
164: I remember hearing that there are a couple of different grades of bamboo. The cheap stuff (which is to say, the stuff in my house) is soft and shows wear fast; the spendy stuff lasts. Even the cheap stuff is really nice under foot, though.
I'm pretty surprised to hear that bamboo flooring is soft.
No love for lino? Sad. It's pretty flexible stuff, cheap, easy to maintain, and you can cut the tiles into all manner of cool patterns. I'd love a Penrose tile linoleum floor. Even better would be those M. C. Escher tessellating lizards.
No love for lino?
It's the Gordon Brown effect. Everything he touches turns to shit.
167, 177 -- Definitely go for lino (or Marmoleum) over cork! When I redo my kitchen floor, that's absolutely what I will put down. I have hardwood in the kitchen right now, which looks nice but which just isn't sustaining heavy use that well, especially given the eco-friendly treatment I put on it.
And there are some really great linoleum patterns out there. Megan was talking about putting some in her house -- did she ever do it?
Has anyone tried cork? We thought about it for our kitchen, but wound up going with wood. The contractor did a shitty enough job that only five years later I'm considering the various options again.
My parents have cork flooring in their kitchen. It seemed fine to me, but then I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about flooring.
Definitely go for lino (or Marmoleum)
Is that lino smeared in Marmite?
Our kitchen is white tile, which we don't love because it's very hard to keep even passably clean. Under the white tile is some ugly linoleum. Under that is green asbestos tile. Under that is the same orginal hardwood flooring that's in the rest of the house. I've been considering ripping out the top three layers, but I'm not sure how well hardwood would do in the kitchen.
184 -- Generally not that well, unless you are super neat or put on some really horrible looking protective finishing, in which case, why bother with the hardwood.
Also, I don't know your local code, but look out before just ripping up the tile -- if there's asbestos involved, things can get very expensive very quickly.
184. Unless you fancy dying of mesothelioma, either leave covered asbestos severely alone or get a pro to take it out while you're staying out of state.
Seriously.
The OP, and most of the thread for that matter, is really just an elaborate, extended double entendre, right?
The OP blog, and most of the threads, for that matter, is are really just an elaborate, extended double entendre, right?
186: thanks for making that explicit, Di.
(The clear tell for me was: "Here's another thing that's on its way out: poured concrete. Because it fucking wrecks your joints..." Mhm. I bet it does.)
188: It's a shame I'm at work, because I have the ideal link for that quote but am leery of the search terms it would take to get me there.
185 sounds like overkill. I'd wear a dust mask.
182: Linoleum is made with linseed oil, whence the name. Marmoleum is made from Marmots, the unused parts of which are boiled down to make the delicious spread we know as Marmite. And now you know... The Rest of the Story.
190. I'd wear a dust mask.
I don't think so.. Read mark learn and hire a fucking pro.
You know what I like that is unbearably trendy right now? Farmhouse sinks. So practical! So lovely to look at! Everyone with a new kitchen has one!
I've always had carpet and kind of yearn for something else, especially since my vacuum stopped working well (and I don't have the money to replace it with anything that would be substantially better). The stuff in my apartment right now is horrid.
No one should act on this without real research, because it's stuff I vaguely remember rather than anything reliable, but asbestos isn't necessarily the stuff that gives you cancer. Asbestos insulation sheds the little particles that get into your lungs and give you mesothelioma, but I'm pretty sure there are other asbestos products that you could sleep on a pile of for thirty years without worrying about (and I think floor tiles are in that class.) I'll google a little.
"As Mathias tells us, living in homes that contain asbestos floor tiles does not mean that you are immediately at risk. But, he warns that if these tiles were to be broken when removed, that asbestos could easily become airborne. If you want to remove these tiles, Mathias states that power tools should be avoided. The tiles will need to be removed by hand, and very carefully. Placing new flooring down can be very dangerous, since the glue from the tiles contains asbestos and will need to be sanded, explains Mathias. Of course, when you sand any material, dust will be involved. With asbestos tiles, this can be very dangerous to your health, so precautions must be taken."
194: I think if you grind it up and inhale it, any asbetos product can be bad for you. And I could see some amount of dust being generated in ripping up floor tiling--they're old, and would probably break, etc. But I have a hard time believing it could be all that hazardous.
Brock is really stepping up his I'll-consume-anything trolling.
But I have a hard time believing it could be all that hazardous.
I don't understand why you should have a hard time believing it. Our networking subcontractor has a clause in their standard contract that they will not work on any building containing asbestos unless it has been certified as made safe by the local authority. That isn't because they love turning down work, you know.
Yeah, I googled some and I think 194 is poorly stated. Plenty of asbestos is harmless in situ, if it's in good shape, and wasn't dangerous to install in the first place -- no one (I think) has lung cancer because they installed asbestos tile floors. But once you're breaking it up into crumbly little bits, it's dangerous.
is poorly stated s/b is nonsense
tongue and groove
We're trying to be subtle in this thread, Knecht. Sheesh!
Megan was talking about putting some in her house -- did she ever do it?
Did not. I was inspired by the prospect of two willing laborers, but they were only living with me over the winter. By the time a couple weeks went by, I was scared that the project would take longer than help was available, so I gave up on it.
After you fill the house with asbestos dust and lead paint dust, make sure not to jounce the joist.
The most expensive of all google adwords is mesothelioma.
But we're talking about a one-time job; I'm not thinking of making a career out of this. Even assuming things went poorly, isn't that about as carcinogenic as, oh, I don't know, smoking a carton of cigarettes?
Try it and see, Brock. Maybe make it a family project.
Further to 201, is the original hardwood flooring painted, by any chance?
No. We have plenty of other lead issues, but that's not one of them.
I removed some floor tile years ago that I now suspect to have contained asbestos. No mesothelioma yet. While it's nasty stuff, I'm under the impression that greatly increased cancer rates are mostly associated with long-term exposure to lots of the stuff, particularly in combination with smoking. Is that wrong?
207: No.
Look, maybe you don't care about your own health, but I would think you'd be concerned about contaminating your house and putting your kids at serious risk.
I hire professionals to do this all the time (in commercial office buildings), and they're not the same contractors who will do the rest of the construction of tenant improvements, because no one wants to do this who isn't a specialist.
201 gets it right. But you MIGHT still be running a risk if you took the floor down to the asbestos tile and tried to put something over it. Might be much better to just go over the linoleum. Or, just bring in somebody licensed.
If I'm not taking it down to the original hardwood, I'm probably not doing anything for the time being. We don't hate the white tile that much. Certainly not enough to spend money on it.
(The green asbestos tile would actually be pretty nice, but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with that as the surface layer. Maybe that's unduly risk averse; I'm not sure.)
I'm under the impression that greatly increased cancer rates are mostly associated with long-term exposure to lots of the stuff, particularly in combination with smoking. Is that wrong?
I think you are right. I have a feeling most of our New York commentators probably have had as much exposure from the WTC collapse as Brock would likely encounter from the project. In this case I would probably go with laying down a new subfloor though since it would probably be easier.
215: I would love to have a recording of Barney Frank's tirade as my ringtone. "Fuck you, Hank! Fuck you!"
214: Thinking more about it, if that level of exposure was a major problem, people in the 60's and 70's ought to be dropping like flies. So definitely not something you want to be breathing on purpose, but I will now go back to not losing sleep over that years-ago demo project.
I wouldn't take up my own asbestos tiles.
But-- Mesothelioma is unusual among types of cancer for having a single cause, asbestos. Adenocarcinoma, small cell carcinoma-- could have been the Marlboros or maybe the dioxin exposure from living near the trash-burning power plant, so anyone sued can plausibly point fingers elsewhere. So 217 is false-- even 1 individual in 100,000 for whom the source of asbestos exposure is documented is a profitable stream of suffering, regardless of the public health significance.
Before doing any work like this, I would do a bunch of homework, looking at stuff like
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/148/2/133
Also, growing kids have heightened sensitivity to carcinogens.
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Yet another homobigot caught with a rent boy. Hired through RentBoy.com, no less.
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Apo beat you to it in the mole thread.
The only excuse for pleats is wearing oxford bags.
Or leg tumors.
There's always asbestosis, as well as the asbestos-related cancer options.
161: also some urchins and squalor and a footballing culture.
225: Provided they're not brown, of course.
you can run the epoxy flooring up the wall a short distance, so you can literally clean the floor with a hose. Yes, my home design aesthetic is all about minimizing effort. There is something soul-destroyingly futile about the war on dirt. It's like Vietnam, but you're not allowed to use napalm.
I approve this hose cleanable floor. I used to pour hot water and Pinesol onto my floor, swish it around vigorously with a mop, and then use a shop broom reserved for the purpose to push all the extra water out onto the screened porch. It kept the floor sparkling clean with a minimum of effort, although the endless stench of Pinesol was a bit overwhelming. Why yes, I have serious dust and pet hair allergies!
I always used to daydream about a kitchen with a sealed door like in a submarine, so I could just close the door, hit a button and Scrubbing Bubbles and boiling hot water would shoot out of the walls to sterilize the place. Also in the bathroom. I like leather furniture, so I am resigned to my dream not working in the living room.
Forget rocket cars and living on Mars. I want the home we were all promised in those Fifties HOME OF THE FUTURE advertisements.
195 sounds unnervingly Biblical. No, Talmudic.
228: I like the way you think. I'm holding out for rent boys robots to do all the work of cleaning, but a room that cleans itself by transforming into a sort of car wash thing would be nice, too.
