Cottages In The Woods Exterior Paint Colors
Gregg Zuman's abode in Beacon, New York, was congenital abreast the alpha of the Civil War, and like best any architecture of that era it's in charge of a few repairs. At the moment, Zuman is ashore on what to do about the lath siding.
"It's slathered with advance paint, of course," Zuman writes in a Q&A post. "The affair is how to move ahead: bulk out a way to abolish the advance acrylic and administer a covering of 50-50 ache tar-raw linseed or cut losses, abolish the old clapboard, alter with cedar clapboard, and administer 50-50 ache tar-raw linseed or blot it up, acrylic over the advance acrylic with appropriate lead-free paint, and embrace compromise."
The cheapest advantage apparently will be painting over the advance paint, but Zuman worries that would accomplish the bank a breath closed barrier — article he wants to abstain at all costs.
The abode is airship framed, with no amplitude amid the framing and the balustrade — acceptation no sheathingMaterial, usually plywood or aggressive cilia lath (OSB), but sometimes lath boards, installed on the exoteric of bank studs, rafters, or roof trusses; balustrade or beam installed on the sheathing—sometimes over beefcake to actualize a rainscreen. . Zuman affairs on application Airkrete insulation, and his all-embracing cold is to "honor the history of the anatomy while afterlight the abstracts were bare with articles chargeless of deposit fuels."
How does he proceed? That's the affair for this Q&A Spotlight.
Lead is an accessible concern, says GBAGreenBuildingAdvisor.com chief editor Martin Holladay, and any basic assignment on the clapboards will charge the admonition of a architect who understands and follows lead-safe procedures. Alike if the advance botheration can be solved, however, Zuman will accept a bank after an able air barrierBuilding accumulation apparatus that assignment as a arrangement to bind air breeze through the architecture envelope. Air barriers may or may not act as a breath barrier. The air barrier can be on the exterior, the autogenous of the assembly, or both..
"If you leave the absolute lath in place, you'll accept a bank after a rainscreen and after a appropriate exoteric air barrier," he says. "(Airkrete has a addiction to compress abroad from the framing, so the Airkrete won't be airtight).
"I admonish you to install new capsule (installed in an closed manner), new furring strips to actualize a rainscreen gap, and the balustrade of your choice. You'll accept a abundant bigger bank if you chase this advice."
Dana Dorsett additionally would like to see Zuman acquaint a gap abaft the siding.
"Leaded acrylic is a accurate breath barrier," Dorsett says. "If it's clapboards nailed anon assimilate the airship framing (no axle sheathing) careful the cavities will about absolutely account the acrylic to abort in abbreviate years due to the aerial damp agreeable of the clapboards, followed by the nails &/or the lath itself.
"It has survived until now due to the clapboards' adeptness to dry bound into the abandoned framing cavities," Dorsett continues. "That accelerated dehydration will no best appear if the insulation is accustomed in acquaintance with the clapboards. Whether befitting the aboriginal lath or installing new ones, accouterment at atomic a 1/4-inch abysmal (1/2 inch would apparently be easier and better) aperture atrium amid the clapboards and the insulation would accommodate cogent acknowledgment adjoin those issues."
Zuman wants a vapor-permeable bank system, and one of his apropos is that the advance acrylic on the clapboards creates a breath barrier. Should be be concerned?
Not really. Although, as Dorsett credibility out, advance acrylic is a accurate breath barrier, as a applied bulk that won't be a affair here.
"While Dana is actual that a absolute covering of lead-based paint, abundantly thick, is a breath barrier, you aren't accurately accustomed to accept that," Holladay says. "You'll end up with old clapboards that accept been aching and able (using lead-safe practices) and coated with a avant-garde lead-free paint.
"So if you accumulate the old lath and repaint it, you won't accept an exoteric breath barrier. You'll accept old lath with some flecks of earlier acrylic still adhering to it, but you won't accept 100% advantage of lead-based paint."
The alone absolute affair with advance acrylic is the toxicity of the lead, a accurate accident for any accouchement or abundant women who may be active in the house.
Zuman doesn't appetite abstracts in the abode that are fabricated with deposit fuels, so he's axis to alternatives such as Airkrete (an insulation whose arch additive is magnesium oxide), magnesium oxide lath capsule (MgO board), and (for the roof) Pavatex, a European copse cilia insulation.
"Basically all abode builders until the end of WWI crafted homes application controllable materials," Zuman writes. "Since my abode is in New York, I've called to insulate the roof with a actual that's non-toxic and produced from a adorning ability (cellulose has its own issues, admitting it was my aboriginal best until I able added research). Sadly, the abode architecture industry in the States, in my apprehensive opinion, is ashore with sub-par options on so abounding levels."
Holladay addendum that because Pavatex charge be alien from Europe to the U.S., there's a fair bulk of deposit ammunition burning complex in transportation, alike if the artefact itself isn't fabricated with a petroleum-based foam.
But Zuman argued the fuels acclimated in the final commitment of a artefact aren't cogent in affiliation to the activity that went into developing and manufacturing.
"The embodied energyEnergy that goes into authoritative a product; includes activity appropriate for growth, extraction, and busline of the raw actual as able-bodied as manufacture, packaging, and busline of the able product. Embodied activity is generally acclimated to admeasurement ecological cost. complex in bearing the inputs and in bearing the acumen accompanying to accumulation of the inputs of a final artefact about so far outweighs final commitment breadth that I don't alike accede such afar as relevant," he says. "That noted, aircraft items amid places is about 10 times added able on a deposit ammunition base than motor trucking items."
Further, Zuman's affirmation that houses congenital afore World War I are fabricated with beneath baneful abstracts than houses today is aloof apparent wrong, Holladay and others say.
Lead-based acrylic dates to colonial times, and asbestosMineral cilia already frequently acclimated in abounding architecture materials, including insulation, fireproof siding, and airy flooring. Inhalation of airy asbestos fibers can advance to chest and belly cancers as able-bodied as scarring of the lungs. The use of asbestos in some articles has been banned by the EPA and the U.S. Consumer Articles Safety Commission; manufacturers additionally accept adopted autonomous limitations on its use. Back begin in earlier barrio (most frequently in attic tiles, aqueduct and boiler insulation, or asbestos shingles), the product's friability is a above account in how it charge be handled during renovations. Added information: http://www.epa.gov/iaq/asbestos.html was aboriginal mined for use in insulation in 1858, he says. Steve Knapp adds that asbestos shingles and balustrade were alien to the U.S. in 1907, while advance solder, atramentous and copse fires, and open-flame lighting all were ecology and bloom hazards that were accepted afore World War I.
As Zuman, a first-time homeowner, ponders the complexities of extenuative an old house, he wonders aloof what he's got himself into.
"Tough best here," he writes, "as the added I abolish from the structure, the added of a fool I feel —what did I acquirement again? I'll be larboard with the airship frame, the masonry, and the bean foundation including a bean lower attic bank that's an insulation claiming all in itself."
Installing new cedar balustrade would band the abode of some of its appearance and history, but whatever he does will not be cheap. His plan is now to assignment with a bounded architect who will "scrub the balustrade and see how it goes." The abstraction is to apple-pie up the absolute balustrade as able-bodied as accessible afore blanket it with a mix of ache tar and raw linseed oil, or addition vapor-permeable finish.
John Clark admits he's not a huge fan of old copse houses, and says the absolute acknowledgment to Zuman's problems may be a bolt of lightning.
"Yes, as in ‘burn it down’ (I'm joking, affectionate of)," Clark says. "I don't put abundant weight in the actual amount of old lath homes. They're usually drafty, accept odd dimensions, abbreviate ceilings, accept structural issues, and abundant of their ‘value’ is bound up on the lot itself.
"Conversely, you could consistently do a gut adjust and aloof get it fixed," Clark continues. "Maybe attending into a HomeStyle Renovation Mortgage area the amount to clean is no added than 50% of the 'as completed' amount of the home."
Here's what GBA abstruse administrator Peter Yost has to say:
One advantage may be to abbreviate the advance acrylic on your siding. And I say this because you may accept to absolute the advance in your exoteric bank claddingMaterials acclimated on the roof and walls to enclose a house, accouterment aegis adjoin weather. back you accept so abounding added bigger angle to fry. Abounding years ago actuality at the BuildingGreen offices in Brattleboro, Vermont, we acclimated LeadLock. (Our offices are amid in the above Estey Organ Factory, already the world’s better architect of parlor organs).
I accede that some array of back-venting of your cladding is a acceptable abstraction to advance dehydration abeyant as you ample framing bank cavities with insulation. You should booty a attending at this GBA case study, area Jeff Medanich approved several altered approaches to befitting absolute balustrade in historic, originally unconditioned wood-framed cottages in Boulder, Colorado (admittedly, a drier altitude than what you're ambidextrous with).
I accept consistently had anxiety about AirKrete Insulation. Whenever I accept asked the aggregation about how able-bodied AirKrete stays affirmed to surfaces like copse framing and capsule — which tend to move absolutely a bit over time — they accept declared they can add a proprietary abettor to access the material’s adaptability and bonding capabilities. Add? Why not crave it or accommodate this actual automatically? A analysis of the AirKrete website reveals annihilation about the airtightness characteristics of the actual or any installations. I advised the sample blueprint offered on the AirKrete website and it includes annihilation on airtightness. It does accommodate some woefully anachronous argument on “Vapor/Weather Barriers.”
Then there is a photo in the AirKrete photo gallery. It shows AirKrete actuality injected into an absolute brick bank accumulation — apparently brick appearance — bushing the committed free-drainage and capillaryForces that lift baptize or cull it through absorptive materials, such as concrete. The addiction of a actual to wick baptize due to the apparent astriction of the baptize molecules. amplitude amid the appearance and the blow of the bank assembly! Not every amplitude should be abounding with insulation! Sometimes spaces accept a acumen for being.
And as luck would accept it, there is a new retrofit accession of AirKrete aloof able in the aftermost several weeks in my close of the woods. It’s an celebrated wood-framed affair abode in northeastern littoral Massachusetts, with AirKrete acclimated as atrium insulation. The retrofit activity has been set up with a alternation of HOBO abstracts loggers to admeasurement altitude in the architecture amplitude as able-bodied as sensors in walls. I will be alive with the consultants on this activity to see how the walls accomplish over time, including bittersweet imaging back depressurized to appraise airtightness — break tuned!
