Sunday, May 1, 2011

More %#&*!!%# Tar Paper

Today we mostly finished the office tar removal. It only took 2 solid weekends. Having never removed anything like this before we were unsure of how to approach it. obviously we did not want to use anything toxic or flammable since this was inside the house. So that meant no gasoline or kerosene and living in California it meant there was not much selection on stripping chemicals.

I first tried to use a propane torch that I borrowed from my boss however it did not work well at all. All it did was melt the tar.

We went with a brand called citrus stripper. It is low VOC, not toxic at all, it cost $41 a gallon and I would have needed around 3 or 4 gallons. It also does not work worth a crap. I followed the directions and left it on for around 3 hours. All it did was to smear it into a blackish blob.

A. Then did her research and came up with the idea of using boiling water and vinegar. Damned if it did not work and I only had to leave it on for about 3 minutes before scraping.

After we finished we then moved onto the new room where we decided to go ahead and rip out the existing floor. And underneath the two layers of stuff we found.......more Tar Paper.

To be continued.........

Safety First

After three hours that is all the stripper did

some of the removed tar

more removed tar with used blades. we had about 7 bags


more tar paper in the office :(

here we go again

2 comments:

K said...

We pray for North-East here and we pray for South-East there.
The destroyed area looks like Tunami area. Terrible.

About 60^70 years ago, maybe it was the only way to use Tar-paper for prevention of moisture. I know A and you got the muscular pain.
Take care!

Brett said...

We are also praying for your NE and our SE too.

Long time ago I guess that is all they had, tar paper. My hands do hurt very bad, but A is also doing her part and scraping.