Raincharm’s Weblog

For us, 2012 finished with a whimper.
Yesterday’s score: Basement 1 : Carl & Jay 0

We are working on the floor.
It is a floor  structure placed on the cement basement floor.
Vinyl tile on top, mastic (with 2% chrysolite asbestos), plywood (3/4″)
Under the plywood are 2″x 4″ going here and there to give additional height to the floor.

And of course, on top of the floor is the large beast – composed of the elliptical and the weight machine.

The directions for working with the non-friable asbestos are to cut through the entire flooring structure (plywood) with a chisel. No power tools. So, that is what we tried to do.

We did get the closet portion separated from the rest (which allowed to see the 2×4 structure).
I had started to take off the 2×4’s and this appears reasonably within my abilities, when I don’t have a sore back.
And Carl chiseled through some other areas (until the chisel broke), but no other parts would separate.

The energy to progress ratio was extremely low on this work, so we made two decisions.

1. Do no work on New Year’s Day. (This was in large part due to the inability to bend over.)

2. Try a different tactic with the floor.

Move the beast off of the floor,
tilt the floor up (it is too wide to just flip) supporting it with the many cinder blocks we still have in our possession,
take the 2×4’s off of the bottom.
Look for the breaks in the plywood, and then just cut through the tile at the plywood breaks.

This is completely my idea, and there are several potential issues where it could fall apart. (Not the floor – it is too sturdy.)
But for now it is the best idea I have (other than hiring a contractor to finish what we started).

We did stay up and toast the new year.

This afternoon we took advantage of the sunny (but chilly) day and walked over to Green Lake.
The place was hopping. All manner of people and dogs. Carl called it “amateur day” as there were so many people and not paying attention to others, or the lane markings. We ditched the trail and went up through the neighborhood instead.

Walking definitely helps the back, and I may even attempt to move some garbage from the basement to the garage.

This entry was posted on January 1, 2013 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.