Sanding Walls

Old Jul 14th 2016, 4:40 am
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Default Re: Sanding Walls

Wait. Infrared generates heat . A heat gun generates heat. How is the end result different as it relates to making paint melt and become easy to scrape off?
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Old Jul 14th 2016, 7:01 am
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Default Re: Sanding Walls

If you have children it would be a good idea to wet mop and change any carpet in the area.
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Old Jul 14th 2016, 9:12 pm
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Default Re: Sanding Walls

Just scrape the damn paint off and sand the f'in walls with a bit of sandpaper on a stick.

The likelihood of a homeowner suffering any ill effects at all from sanding or scraping lead paint in a one-off reno job is vanishingly small. The permissible exposure limit (PEL) for airborne lead in the workplace for general employees is 50 microgrammes per cubic metre (yes, even the US CDC uses proper SI units for this stuff - see Lead (Pb) Toxicity: What Are the U.S. Standards for Lead Levels? | ATSDR - Environmental Medicine & Environmental Health Education - CSEM ) over an 8-hour workday. You'd have to work pretty damn hard to get to that sort of 8-hour level from sanding the surface of one wall, or stripping the paint from one door. Even the most basic of precautions - wearing a simple dust mask, clearing the workspace before you start, hoovering up the mess promptly when you've finished - will likely keep you well within acceptable exposure limits.

IMO this amounts to yet another example of the general public (aided by the media) not fully understanding statistical risk analysis. Yes, the effects of lead poisoning are horrible. No, you're not going to poison yourself if you do a bit of DIY in an old house.
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Old Jul 14th 2016, 9:55 pm
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Default Re: Sanding Walls

Originally Posted by Oakvillian
Just scrape the damn paint off and sand the f'in walls with a bit of sandpaper on a stick.
There there. No need for that.

The advice I asked on sanding to start off with, was because I'm a small fragile female with almost zero upper body strength.
And the lead issue, it only occurred to me when I was more than halfway into the door stripping.

And btw, in the first bout of hot gun use on the first side of the door, the combination of the heat, smell and sound gave me a sudden migraine attack. (Not saying it had anything to do with lead - that is supposedly a chronic effect) Initially I didn't realize what was happening, I just felt a little dizzy and my vision was blurred, I thought the vision issue was from the heat or dust. I put the heat gun down and in trying to figure out my vision I realized I had an area in on one side that was totally gone. I panicked, thinking the heat to my eye, but within a few seconds I sensed pain coming and it clicked this was my first ever migraine with a visual disturbance. And it turned into one of the worst ever, severe nausea, severe pain, the works. So yes, I'm now a little cautious about using the heat gun. No more than 15 min sessions.

Originally Posted by Oakvillian

The likelihood of a homeowner suffering any ill effects at all from sanding or scraping lead paint in a one-off reno job is vanishingly small. The permissible exposure limit (PEL) for airborne lead in the workplace for general employees is 50 microgrammes per cubic metre (yes, even the US CDC uses proper SI units for this stuff - see Lead (Pb) Toxicity: What Are the U.S. Standards for Lead Levels? | ATSDR - Environmental Medicine & Environmental Health Education - CSEM ) over an 8-hour workday. You'd have to work pretty damn hard to get to that sort of 8-hour level from sanding the surface of one wall, or stripping the paint from one door. Even the most basic of precautions - wearing a simple dust mask, clearing the workspace before you start, hoovering up the mess promptly when you've finished - will likely keep you well within acceptable exposure limits.

IMO this amounts to yet another example of the general public (aided by the media) not fully understanding statistical risk analysis. Yes, the effects of lead poisoning are horrible. No, you're not going to poison yourself if you do a bit of DIY in an old house.
Risk analysis is not MEANT for the general public anyway.

If you understand the science of it, you also know that the end points we measure/see is what is measurable. It doesn't mean that below 50 mcg/m3 over 8 hours has zero effect. Plus I haven't looked into the conditions under which CDC determined is the AVERAGE WORKPLACE air load. Did you?

If I know that I can take precautions to minimize my exposure why wouldn't I if it's possible to do so without huge burden.

Last edited by jmood; Jul 14th 2016 at 10:34 pm.
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Old Jul 15th 2016, 1:25 pm
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Default Re: Sanding Walls

Originally Posted by jmood
There there. No need for that.

The advice I asked on sanding to start off with, was because I'm a small fragile female with almost zero upper body strength.
And the lead issue, it only occurred to me when I was more than halfway into the door stripping.

And btw, in the first bout of hot gun use on the first side of the door, the combination of the heat, smell and sound gave me a sudden migraine attack. (Not saying it had anything to do with lead - that is supposedly a chronic effect) Initially I didn't realize what was happening, I just felt a little dizzy and my vision was blurred, I thought the vision issue was from the heat or dust. I put the heat gun down and in trying to figure out my vision I realized I had an area in on one side that was totally gone. I panicked, thinking the heat to my eye, but within a few seconds I sensed pain coming and it clicked this was my first ever migraine with a visual disturbance. And it turned into one of the worst ever, severe nausea, severe pain, the works. So yes, I'm now a little cautious about using the heat gun. No more than 15 min sessions.



Risk analysis is not MEANT for the general public anyway.

If you understand the science of it, you also know that the end points we measure/see is what is measurable. It doesn't mean that below 50 mcg/m3 over 8 hours has zero effect. Plus I haven't looked into the conditions under which CDC determined is the AVERAGE WORKPLACE air load. Did you?

If I know that I can take precautions to minimize my exposure why wouldn't I if it's possible to do so without huge burden.
For sure - I didn't mean to imply that you, specifically, were overreacting. It's more that some of the advice on this thread has escalated way, way beyond what is "possible to do without huge burden."

A mask of some sort while you prepare the surfaces is reasonable. Scraping the door in small bursts of activity seems reasonable to me also, if the volatile compounds released by the heat gun trigger migraine. I hadn't appreciated that you're "a small fragile female" - in which case your very first suggestion for one of those power sander things sounds like a good bet for doing the walls.

Apologies if I came across as too aggressive. But some of the other posts, going as far as to suggest expensive negative-pressure ventilation systems, replacing carpets, etc, is a bit ridiculous, IMO.
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Old Jul 15th 2016, 3:36 pm
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Default Re: Sanding Walls

Originally Posted by Oakvillian
For sure - I didn't mean to imply that you, specifically, were overreacting. It's more that some of the advice on this thread has escalated way, way beyond what is "possible to do without huge burden."

A mask of some sort while you prepare the surfaces is reasonable. Scraping the door in small bursts of activity seems reasonable to me also, if the volatile compounds released by the heat gun trigger migraine. I hadn't appreciated that you're "a small fragile female" - in which case your very first suggestion for one of those power sander things sounds like a good bet for doing the walls.

Apologies if I came across as too aggressive. But some of the other posts, going as far as to suggest expensive negative-pressure ventilation systems, replacing carpets, etc, is a bit ridiculous, IMO.
Hence my advice for a simple cheapo box fan with an AC filter duck-taped to the intake side. It'll cost about $40 - $20 for the fan, and $20 for a good quality filter, and will remove most of the dust at negligible cost.

Personally if I wanted to strip a door I would invest in paying for it to be stripped in a vat of caustic soda.
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Old Jul 15th 2016, 3:47 pm
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Default Re: Sanding Walls

Originally Posted by Pulaski
Personally if I wanted to strip a door I would invest in paying for it to be stripped in a vat of caustic soda.
Indeed. One of my summer jobs as a student was working for an outfit that specialised in repurposing old lumber - they'd bought up vast stocks as the Docklands warehouses were torn down or turned into chichi loft apartments, then used it to make high-end barn conversions in Hampshire & Wiltshire. The caustic bath was a vicious thing - and I'm sure occupational health & safety would have been appalled at the cavalier way the bunch of students treated it. It did, though, do an awesome job on doors. And on a couple of tons' worth of parquet flooring pieces from, I think, the boardroom floor in the Bryant & May matchstick factory.

I got to work as mate to the guy that laid some of this in the hallway of one of the conversions - fascinating work, proper actual craftsmanship went into that. More impressive, though, was the cabinetmaker who turned a bunch of nail-hole-ridden floorboards and joists into immaculate kitchen cabinetry, built to such fine tolerances that you could put a two-drawer cabinet on its back, swap the drawers over and drop them into the "wrong" drawer box, and they'd still float smoothly down into place on a cushion of air. I learned a lot that summer: mostly that I was never going to have the patience to be a really good carpenter!
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Old Jul 24th 2016, 9:51 pm
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Default Re: Sanding Walls

Originally Posted by Pulaski

Personally if I wanted to strip a door I would invest in paying for it to be stripped in a vat of caustic soda.
Indeed!
Excellent idea it it was my own home. I rent. But it's a slumlord and the work that their workers do is just slap on another coat of paint with no remedial work , this is why I embarked on this project myself.

I have one "new(er) " door that my Super installed and I hate its hollow flat characterless cheapishness. The door I'm stripping has "features"

But also, I realize I don't make the best rational and practical choices. i.e. self-striiping and painting this door with the intent to do 2 others.
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Old Jul 24th 2016, 10:06 pm
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Default Re: Sanding Walls

Originally Posted by Oakvillian
But some of the other posts, going as far as to suggest expensive negative-pressure ventilation systems, replacing carpets, etc, is a bit ridiculous, IMO.
I know.
I suspect they were only reading the very last post, seeing the word "lead" and then replying, without realizing the extent of the project.

My floors are all parquet, no carpets. I guess that helps.


Originally Posted by Oakvillian
Indeed. One of my summer jobs as a student was working for an outfit that specialised in repurposing old lumber - they'd bought up vast stocks as the Docklands warehouses were torn down or turned into chichi loft apartments, then used it to make high-end barn conversions in Hampshire & Wiltshire. The caustic bath was a vicious thing - and I'm sure occupational health & safety would have been appalled at the cavalier way the bunch of students treated it. It did, though, do an awesome job on doors. And on a couple of tons' worth of parquet flooring pieces from, I think, the boardroom floor in the Bryant & May matchstick factory.

I got to work as mate to the guy that laid some of this in the hallway of one of the conversions - fascinating work, proper actual craftsmanship went into that. More impressive, though, was the cabinetmaker who turned a bunch of nail-hole-ridden floorboards and joists into immaculate kitchen cabinetry, built to such fine tolerances that you could put a two-drawer cabinet on its back, swap the drawers over and drop them into the "wrong" drawer box, and they'd still float smoothly down into place on a cushion of air. I learned a lot that summer: mostly that I was never going to have the patience to be a really good carpenter!
All of that sounds (weirdly?) fascinating and enticing to me, love it - though I'm nowhere close in my profession or working life to any of that kind of activity.

Actually I came back to this thread to report my verdict on the Hepa respirator/filter from 3M. It works! The first time you put it on which for me was for 3 second to try it on a few weeks ago when I first got it, it's overbearing. Then today I somehow managed to tolerate it. And on top of that wore a clear full face sheet. I got zero smell and was able to put up with it for about 30 mins. On a little break now.

I vaguely recall that I was feeling I was getting small particulates in my nose - though I can't swear to that despite the face shield so the mask definitely stopped that.

I did also have 2 fans pointing away from me and the work area towards an open window. I don't know how much that would have helped with the smell if I hadn't had the respirator, but it probably helped somewhat. Thanks for the suggestions!

I'm still at the stripping the paint stage. When I move to sanding the door I'm sure the respirator and the fans will be even more useful

EDIT: The 2nd half hour with the respirator wasn't 100% like the first. I got some smell. I can't imagine it was because the filters were getting loaded with that just that short of a use. And also, I did tighten the straps more on the 2nd usage as the mask felt looser. So not sure about perfect efficiency of it anymore. Still much better than not using it.

Last edited by jmood; Jul 24th 2016 at 11:49 pm.
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Old Jul 25th 2016, 5:03 am
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Default Re: Sanding Walls

Originally Posted by jmood
I'm intending to paint walls that have previously been very shoddily painted. A lot of irregularities, like dried drips, patches of blobs, blobby streaks, etc. The skirting boards (old, high, elaborate, layers of stuck on wires) are an unspeakable mess.

I did sand some walls several years ago in London after removing wall paper and before painting with oil based egg-shell (i.e. shows every minor defect) and it came out beautifully - but nearly killed me. And now I'm older (!!!) and prone to getting tired much quicker I don't know if I dare sand by hand again.

I googled best type of sander for walls and saw a forum say "pole sander" and not orbital sander. Same forum also said power sanders have no business on walls.

It was a very old thread so I couldn't ask follow up questions. The pole sander seems even harder than hand sanding because how would I apply pressure to the tip of a pole if I'm already not strong and tall? I think I couldn't. And why have power sanders no business on walls?

Any suggestions on brands/makes that collect all the dust the best? Any suggestions in general please? Thanks.
I don't know where you live but wouldn't it be better to just knock out the walls and re-drywall them, That is if drywall is used for interior insulation where you live of course
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Old Jul 25th 2016, 10:52 am
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Default Re: Sanding Walls

Originally Posted by dc koop
I don't know where you live but wouldn't it be better to just knock out the walls and re-drywall them, That is if drywall is used for interior insulation where you live of course
Check post #53.
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Old Jul 25th 2016, 7:52 pm
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Default Re: Sanding Walls

Originally Posted by Pulaski
What is the house made from? Most, though admittedly not "all" houses in the US were timber framed even before plasterboard was invented. So what you might have is a lath-and-plaster wall, which was a technique also used in Britain, not least for ceilings before the invention of plasterboard. It is perfectly possible for an old house which was built with lath-and-plaster walls to have had new walls inserted, or even old walls "resurfaced" with plasterboard - and even that could mean either the lath-and-plaster was removed (which is hellishly messy) and replaced with ½" plasterboard, or ¼" plasterboard installed over the lath and plaster. OR you could even have ¼" plasterboard installed over wooden paneling or beadboard. The permutations are almost endless!

And I even wonder what you found by knocking on the wall? Because a lath-and-plaster wall is also hollow-sounding. You can tell because a plasterboard wall is softer and a small nail or drawing pin can be pushed into plasterboard much more easily than into a lath-and-plaster wall.

I hired a plasterer to plaster my kitchen in London - all four walls, plus the ceiling - two walls were masonry, two walls and the ceiling were plasterboard, and yes, it was fascinating to watch, and the results were extraordinary.
Assuming one has a wood ["stick"] framed house, the type of wall material can vary a lot. See this wikipedia article. We used to own a house built in 1940 and it had the wood lath.

Our current house was built in 1939 and it has gypsum "button board" lath. The "button board" comes form the fact that it had holes to hold the plaster.

These days, "drywall" plasterboard is used and use of actual interior plastering has fallen by the wayside. [Note: exterior plastering aka "stucco" is still quite common]. In 2000 we had plaster in our kitchen -- but the plaster was a 70 year old journeyman. In the recent work on our house, drywall was used and then a skim coating plaster was put on it. Many house just use the drywall.

BTW, back in the 1920-30's, it was common to put on a thin brown wall-paper layer. I am told that the idea was to prevent the inevitable cracks from showing.

So, OP's question is way to general.
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