Minnesota's Home Remodeling Expert

After 30 or 40 years, the galvanized steel flashing around a brick chimney will start rusting away and should be replaced.  If the chimney needs to be torn down to the roof line, the mason should replace the flashing as originally installed.  If no tear down is needed and the bricks are sound, the most permanent and waterproof method involves cutting off the old flashing, adding galvanized step flashing at each row of shingles and installing a riglet counter flashing to cover the tops of the step flashing.  A 3/4″ deep groove is cut into the bricks to receive the bent edge of the riglet.  A bead of flexible caulking seals between the top of the riglet and the brick.

The most common problem with brick chimneys in Minnesota

Most residential fireplace chimneys in the upper midwest built in the 60’s and 70’s were built with used Chicago bricks.  These bricks were salavaged from the demolition of tall brick buildings in Chicago and other cities.  Most of these bricks came from the core of very thick walls and were not made to withstand water absorption.

When the snow on top of the chimney melts during a sunny day, the bricks on the top 2 or 3 feet absorb the water, and then at night it freezes.  Over time the surface of the bricks flake off or spauld.    The solution is to tear down the top 2 or 3 feet and rebuild using matching bricks that are not porous and therefore won’t absorb water.

The cement cap on the top of the chimney often cracks because it was too thin, and the concrete mix wasn’t right.  The cap should be at least 4″ thick and sloped toward the edges for good drainage.  The concrete used should be 2 bags of premixed concrete mix to 1 bag of premixed sand mix with a little extra Portland cement and poly fibers added.  As a final touch, use silicone caulking between the flue tile and the concrete cap after the cap has dried.  Also, a concrete sealer can be used on the cap after it has dried.

The $1500 tax credit for installing windows with a U value under .3 went into effect in 2009 and lasts through 2010.   If you have energy effiecient windows installed, you can calculate your tax credit by multiplying the actual cost of the windows without tax times .3.  The maximum tax credit is $1500.00.

Window inserts are a fully framed window installed within the existing window frame.  The sashes and stops of the old window are removed.  Then the new window is custom made to fit inside the old frame. Trim pieces are installed to cover the small gap between the new window and the old frame.

PROS AND CONS

With a window insert the old inside and outside trim stays intact.  With a full frame window replacement, the inside and outside trim gets replaced.  One disadvantage of inserts is that the glass size is reduced.  Another disadvantage could be that any air leaks around the frame of the old window are not going to be corrected.  An advantage is that the job will cost maybe 10-15% less.

Yes, in the short term, it probably will.  However, as gas prices continue to climb and the economy continues to go in the dumper, it won’t make much difference in the long run anyway.  So you might as well side your house with something natural and beautiful like cedar siding.  You’ll get to enjoy looking at something beautiful for many years and by the time your siding needs refinishing, you’ll probably be too broke to afford the gas to heat your home and you could stay wam by burning the cedar siding in your newly installed barrel stove in the living room.

As the engineered collapse of our economy by the financial elites occurs, you may not be able to keep making the payments on your artifically high mortgage so after you’ve burned up the siding you could burn the interior doors, flooring and every other wall stud.  Save the window and door trim and the baseboards.  They make excellent fuel for cooking fires.  Hopefully by this time spring has come and you can squat in the house until winter.  By this time the house won’t be worth much, but this is totally appropo since the “money” the bank gave you was created out of thin air and would have enslaved you for 30 years, paying the bank mostly interest with real money that you earned doing something useful and/or productive.

Yes, insulated vinyl siding is ok looking but you can’t burn it to stay warm in the winter.  It’s also plastic.  Do you really want to live in a plastic house?

Most kinds of siding do not add any significant insulating value to a wall.  However, there are several brands of vinyl siding that offer the version with a styrofoam backer board bonded to the back of the vinyl.  This siding typically adds an R-value of 4.0 to 4.5 to the wall.

On a  wall made from 2 x 4’s an additional R-value of 4.5 is quite significant.  Starting with an R-value of 12, adding 4.5 results i a 27% increase on insulation.  As energy costs increase, it could mean significant savings.

Moist air that passes through the wall to the outside will condense on the back side of the styrofoam and flow down channels molded into the styrofoam to weep holes at the bottom of each panel.

Another advantage of the insulated vinyl siding is how solid it is.  It’s more like a board than just a flexible thin membrane.  This makes it much more resistant to breakage from impact.  Also it doesn’t rattle in turbulent winds like standard vinyl siding.   Styrofoam insulation is much denser than the fiberglass in the wall making it a much more effective sound barrier (blocking more noise from traffic, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, etc).

The Crane brand takes advantage of the solid support of the styrofoam to create a panel with up to a 7″ exposure per row.  They also have flattened out the panel from the bottom edge to the top of each row.  Non-insulated vinyl is concave from bottom to top of each row.  The flat panel tends to look a little more like real wood siding.

In the new EPA rules and regulations on safety procedures for handling lead-containing dust and debris on various remodeling projects, they repeatedly refer to a “work area”.  All the safety procedures that address containment of lead-containing dust and debris apply within the “work area”.  That work area, at a minimum, is at least 6 feet out from the edges of the lead paint disturbance on interior project, and 10 feet away from an outside project.  If  the contractor chooses a larger work area, like closing off an entire room, then all the safety procedures and clean up apply to the entire room.  It is up to the contractor’s judgement, depending on how much lead-containing dust and debris will be created.

Any interior project that involves disturbing 6 square feet or more of lead based paint is affected by the EPA’s lead safety procedures for remodeling, repairing, and painting (RRP) rules and regulations for lead safety.  The purpose of RRP rules is to set  minimum standards and best practice procedures to contain lead dust and debris and minimize lead exposure to people.

EPA rules for interior masonry projects

Interior masonry projects are affected by the  new EPA rules and regulations for remodeling, repairing, and painting (RRP). On pre-1978 houses, if lead paint is disturbed by scraping, cutting or demolition, these regulations apply. The general contractor and one person on the crew must be certified by the EPA by taking the RRP class.   

Testing for Lead  on interior brickwork projects

The contractor can test for lead paint and only use the EPA safety procedures if the test is positive for lead, or he can just use the safety procedures on every pre-1978 house and not do the test for lead.

Interior masonry projects and the Purpose of RRP regulations

Lead is very toxic when ingested or inhaled, especially to children.  The safety procedures are designed to contain paint chips and dust so they don’t contaminate the environment where people will be exposed to them.  

When don’t the EPA rules apply to interior masonry jobs? 

If the work involves simply replacing unpainted bricks, without any scraping or sanding of lead based paint, the safety procedures don’t apply.   

Containment of lead-containing debris

It is up to the contractor’s judgment how to contain the debris.  The minimum requirement is for certain-sized plastic tarps to be used on the floor or ground.  If lead-based dust is produced by grinding, or demolition, the power tools used must be attached to a HEPA-filtered vacuum.  Also, a floor-to-ceiling plastic wall must be built to contain the lead dust to the work area.