How do I talk to my landlord about asbestos?

There are two ways to deal with asbestos – one is to put on hazmat suits and strip it out completely. The other is leave it alone. Ideally, seal it up.

I had some excellent asbestos tile in a basement of a rental house. I put a skim of concrete on it and then added a waterproof subfloor – then put linoleum on it. Done. Happy Health Inspector.

If you want to break off pieces – bad idea. If you want to rip it out – worse idea.

Undisturbed asbestos is not an issue. Health Inspectors told me that. Some cover it with carpet or linoleum.

Asbestos is an excellent fire retardant and was used throughout schools and even basement waterproofing near me the air ducts. Concerned parents learned asbestos could be dangerous and out it came.

Where is this asbestos? What condition is it in?

I need more information. For all I know, you could be concerned your unit has asbestos but haven’t seen any.

Waterproofing for Concrete Foundations – The Concrete Network

Word of caution! many contractors claim to be experts at this but very few of them know what they are doing. My mother-in-law wasted a lot on money on a contractor who claimed to know how to dry her basement. Her basement stopped leaking only after I did some of my own DIY simple repairs. I found a leaking pipe, fixed it, and made sure the ground sloped away from the foundation.

It also helps to make sure your gutters are clean and free of leaves.

Whichever contractor you chose do your research on them! Check with the Better Business Bureau or Angie’s List. Please keep in mind that many fly by night contractors who get complaints about them, will merely shut down and open up under another name. I’d go for a contractor that has been in business several years.

What are the disadvantages of having a basement?

 
Hope everything is well there!

• I would love to share with you mine thoughts as my personal experience..
• Hope it will valuable for you.

There really aren’t any major disadvantages besides the fact that your basement could flood. But other than flooding I’d say basements are great storage area that’s keeps the main living area cleaner and more organized,

But I must say There are also a few drawbacks of making basement space in your building.

If you are searching for the best basement waterproofing near me in google, you should be happy to know there are numerous waterproofing companies in Los Angeles offer various types of basement treatments to control water seepage.

Some of them include waterproofing basement walls from inside, exterior waterproofing, installing a basement water pump or powered pumps, or installing interior French drains for interior basement waterproofing systems.

Is it true that if you begin the process of waterproofing your basement, you should also plan on installing a sump pump as well?

The purpose of the sump is to collect water from the soil around the house. When the foundation is dug, plastic drainage tubing, like Big O, are laid around the footings to form a continuous drainage channel. The walls are wrapped in a plastic sheath to prevent water from penetrating horizontally, the drainage channel is covered with gravel, and the gap is backfilled to grade.

You do not always need a sump pump, since you do not always need a sump. Situations, where a sump would be unnecessary, are limited to those where water will not accumulate in the soil. You do not have to live in a desert or an area of very low rainfall for that to be the case. It may be enough simply to be on the highest ground around, or in very well-drained soil.

We had a house without a sump pump because it was built in a large, mostly flat lot with soil that was mainly composed of sand and gravel (could have been a gravel pit if it had not been developed for housing). Water was going to drain down out of that sub-base so fast there would never be any accumulation to be a bother.

Our last two places are near the top in a hilly area, but with some land sloping down toward them.

With the attendant risks of the spring melt, since the soil was much more retentive, they needed sumps. Because of the land sloping down toward us, the sump pump in our last place came on several times an hour, more or less continually, for a couple of weeks in the spring as the snow melted.

Here it only gets triggered a few times a day during that period because we are almost at the top of the hill and most of the melt is diverted away from us.

What is your soil and sub-base like? Does water accumulate in it or drain out fast? Do you have land sloping down toward you to cause rapid runoff onto your property? Will water tend to rapidly drain well away from your house?

If your waterproofing project is going to involve digging out around the foundation to install drainage that could feed a sump, then putting in a sump pump could make sense. If you only mean to apply waterproofing on the inside of your basement walls then it seems to me there is little point in digging a hole in the basement floor and hoping it will fill with water so you can pump it out.

Why is it that leaky houses have lower humidity than tight houses? Wouldn’t a leaky house draw in humid air from the outside?

What we experience as humidity is actually relative humidity, which is the amount of water in the air as a fraction of the amount that the air could hold. This is dependent on temperature; the warmer the air, the more water it can hold.

So if you take some outside air at 40 degrees F. and 70% RH, and move that air indoors and let it warm up to 70 degrees, its RH will drop to around 10%. The total amount of water in the air has not changed, but the amount the air will accept has risen drastically, so the air will feel dry. So yes, the more air leaks your house has, the dryer it will feel inside during winter.

The opposite is also true. Think of a day when the outdoor air is at 85 degrees F and 50% RH. Through leaks or deliberate ventilation you bring that air into your basement and get it near the 60-degree walls, its RH will go past 100%. This is the dewpoint and the dew will form on those cool surfaces called. If this goes on for several weeks each year, mold will start to grow and will show as a gray stain on the lower walls.

The most severe case of this I have seen involved very hot humid weather early in the spring, and the condensation was visible as water dripping down the walls. The homeowner was sure it was a leak, and was about to pay thousands for basement waterproofing. I told him to get a small fan and a dehumidifier, and to consider installing central A/C. He didn’t believe me, but because my suggestion was so much less expensive, he tried it. It worked.