Fixer Upper Tales: Demolition Man

Recap of the last two months:

After two months of coordinating and working with banks and contractors, the house was closed, and the keys were in my hand!

Greg, my contractor at Canright Construction and I got into the house right away and starting tearing things up.

Tearing up:

The house definitely had some issue. Nothing we didn't expect from the inspection but it was interesting getting in there an being able to tear up things.

Here was a section where the roof was leaking along the dining room wall.

Looks a little scary for sure. But luckily the inspection showed it was localized. And that whole wall was coming out for a sliding glass door.

More pressing was the question of if there was Asbestos in the tiles. Luckily there was no asbestos insulation. Asbestos sounds scary, but really the worry is "friable" asbestos, or if you're worried about breathing it in. Solid tiles with asbestos in them are less of an issue.

BTW gorgeous bathroom right? Pink tiles are definitely my thing. Either way, there was no asbestos insulation which is good. So to test the tiles, you take a piece of each tile type, and take them to be tested. If you find tiles with asbestos in them, you have a few options:

Hire a licensed asbestos removal service to remove them. This is expensive.
Simply cover the tiles with plywood or whatever flooring. Remember the danger with asbestos is breathing it in, so if they're solid tiles and are covered, it's really not dangerous.
Remove them yourself as a homeowner. Your contractor can't do this, but you can. They must be removed, double bagged and disposed at an appropriate facility.

So guess which one I did? #3 of course! I wanted to help out with certain aspects of the construction so this seemed a great place to start. After getting tyvek suit, gloves and mask, was all set.

It took an entire day, and was pretty back breaking work, but took care of all the tiles.