Outdoor wood finishes allow graceful aging
What do one-time exterior wood treatments look like after a few years of exposure? You’ve written about these before, but I’m nervous about what happens as they age long-term.
There are two non-toxic, wood-darkening products on the market that I’ve tested and written about in the last decade — Eco Wood Treatment and Lifetime Wood Treatment. Both are similar products that come as a powder you mix with water.
Applied to wood with a brush or sprayer, the tea-coloured liquid makes the surface darken by chemical reaction to a kind of olive grey colour beginning about 30 minutes after application. Over time, this darkening does take on a naturally weathered look, except that the weathering is more even in colour and less blotchy than if you had originally applied nothing.
Eventually, the result is a more even and refined barnboard kind of effect. Not everyone likes this appearance, but some find it quite attractive. The fact that you never have to maintain the surface in any way after initial application is a nice advantage, too.
How can I find a contractor to renovate my attic into livable space? You’ve written about this recently and it sounds great, except I can’t find anyone to do the work.
Unused attic space is the diamond-in-the-rough for many Canadian homes, but not every attic can be turned into a finished zone. Part of your problem might be the design of your roof structure. Older homes with steep roofs and rafters are easy to convert, while low-slope roofs made with trusses can’t usually be converted into a finished attic space.
How many contractors have you approached? Have any of them actually looked inside your attic? It may be that you’ve just approached people who are too busy or inexperienced, so be sure to ask why any new contractors say no.
What materials in an older house could be hazardous? We’re planning to renovate a home built in the late 1950s and would like your opinion on possible harmful materials.
Until 1978, household paint could contain lead, so your home almost certainly has lead paint. That said, it’s not considered a problem unless you’re scraping or sanding it. Lead paint covered by non-lead paint is considered safe as long as it doesn’t get airborne or ingested. If you’d like to know the state of old paint for sure, you can buy a simple lead test kit. Swab on some liquid and, depending on how it changes colour, it indicates the presence or absence of lead. Many people unknowingly strip lead paint from old trim, stairs and built-in cabinets, but precautions are required to stay safe.
Other areas of potential danger include trace amounts of asbestos in loosefill vermiculite insulation, as well as the insulation applied around any hot water heating pipes that might be in
your home.
Why isn’t my newly insulated floor warm? We had the underside of the main floor on our 100-yearold house sprayed with foam insulation, but we’ve still got cold feet. Would the floor get warmer if we had the stone basement walls sprayed?
With the floor already insulated from below, spraying more foam on the foundation walls isn’t going to help. The only way to make the upstairs floor warmer now is to install some kind of supplemental infloor heating above the spray foam.
Trouble is, that’s disruptive and expensive. I wish there were some other option I could suggest, but I’m afraid there isn’t. Insulating the basement walls, then adding heat to the basement would have made a world of difference to your comfort levels before you had the floor sprayed, but won’t help now.