We bought our house in 2012. It has a 1961 boiler system that still works great. Outside we have this rubber membrane that goes over a thick foam that runs along the outside wall wherever there are baseboard rads that are in the inside of the house. Were they placed there to help insulate the pipes from freezing or was it to help them function more efficiently?
If we remove them will it cause an issue? Is this a normal thing to do when there are rads on a ground floor?
Last edited by PJmax; 08-29-21 at 11:36 AM.
Reason: resized/enhanced/labeled pics
Thank you so much for adding those. We can’t find anyone who have added these to the outside of their house. The people who originally owned the house were European so we thought maybe it was a UK thing. lol. Hoping someone could tell us if they have seen this before. We are going to be digging up all the bricks on the walkway next year and thought to also take that foam rubber trim off too. Just not sure whether we should be replacing it. I am thinking it was a homemade job.
I've also never seen it done that way before, but if I had to guess it was to prevent water from getting in under the house and not to do with insulation.
To do that right to insulate it would have been done under the house.
Minnesota's energy code requires insulation around the perimeter of any structure at the floor line and down to prevent cold transfer into the structure. If there's a basement, it's easy, all the insulation is inside. But if its a slab on grade, sometimes the insulation is on the outside. If it is on the outside, it has to be protected from weather and UV deterioration. I've never seen a solution like this, but I bet that was someone's solution. If you remove it, I would suggest you find something to replace it. so you maintain the insulation. Under certain conditions, I've seen frost on interior concrete slabs where there's no insulation.
The strange thing is, it doesn’t go around the entire perimeter of the concrete slab (no basement or crawl space below). It also has some on the other side of our house that has pipes at ceiling level so we assume it’s for insulating the pipes? But if we were to replace it, we don’t even know how to go about that.
Just Curious if road base is always needed. I live in Vancouver. Rains a lot. doesn’t freeze much. The house I own has been here 50 years and the driveway are a gravel dirt mix. Very well compacted.
When the guy I hired to put in pavers came to dig out the driveway he didn’t put road base and only a 2 - 3” machine packed rough sand. He said my driveway was already packed enough. Of course, this guy was the cheapest and all the other quotes included a 4" road base. This guy didn’t have a "real" quote. Only an end price.
So, the sand is laid out and the guys to install pavers are coming back next week. But it rained tonight and some areas of the packed sand sink up to an inch when I walk on it. Not all areas as I assume the areas that don’t sink have a good packed base under them.
Common sense tells me if it’s a dirt and gravel mix depending on how much dirt is in that mix it needs a road base... Thoughts?
Okay, my parents own a condo where the contractor did a shoddy job at installing stone veneer over stucco. As a result, pieces have been falling left and right.
While the condo board tries to work out problems with the contractor (doubtful any responsibility will be taken), I've tried to replace the fallen pieces. The problem I'm running into, however, is that any time I go to chisel away the old mortar, the vibration from the hammer and chisel knock 3-4 NEW pieces off the wall (see pic below).
My question - is there an alternative way to repair these fallen pieces? I know it's not ideal to use anything other than mortar, but I'm wondering if there are any industrial-grade adhesives I might be able to use here that will allow us to patch it up without having to chisel away all the old mortar and have half the wall fall down on me. (or, any ideas on how to remove the mortar gently).
Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
[img]https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.doityourselft.com-vbulletin/2000x1504/img_1705_1cc9128cec2b209ac0cd6f777a8716b47475037d.jpg[/img]
08-29-21, 11:21 AM
