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Bathroom Eco-Renovation As readers of this journal know, the Eco-Home kitchen is poised in mid-renovation. The plan was to finish it and then go on to the bathroom. But an ever-deepening and widening hole in the floor of the bathroom dictated that we turn our attention to that room immediately. Since we were going to have to put in a new floor, it made sense to proceed with the entire renovation of the bathroom.
Meanwhile, I was interviewing contractors. The bids were frightening. Labor costs alone exceeded my budget without even including materials. Over the summer I had been getting odd jobs done around Eco-Home by Xavier Hernandez. He was a pleasure to work with. He was craftsmanlike and cared about the quality of his work. One afternoon he overheard a con- versation I was having with a contractor about the bathroom and he told me he was a general contractor, not just a handyman. Xavier’s references were all very positive and I asked him for a bid on the job. His bid and his craft and commitment to doing the best job he could, no matter what it took, made it possible to complete the bathroom renovation exactly as designed, within budget.
I had been collecting samples of floor tiles with recycled content for some time: Terra Green Ceramics tiles and Westminster’s Nature Series, which are fabricated with recycled glass, and Summitville’s Morganmates, made with feldspar waste. My final choice of Terra Green tiles was based on the availability of the size and colors that I wanted. The warm beige and dark olive green colors I chose came from my memories of visits to houses of architects, Green and Green. The tile pattern evolved after perusing some library books on Craftsman architecture and furnishings. My aim was to create a floor with a pattern and colors appropriate for Eco-Home’s old Craftsman bungalow (See Figure 3). I was greatly assisted in obtaining these tiles for an affordable price by David Adamson at Eco Build in Boulder, CO. I got my original information about Terra Green tiles from him and he beat the prices of Classic Tiles, a local distributer in Santa Monica, by over $200.
As long as I have been in the house the tub has been enclosed in a painfully ugly, jerry-rigged enclosure. Every year this unfortunate construction warped more and lost more of the mosiac tiles it was surfaced with. Because of the shape and the curve of the tub’s rim, I suspected that hidden behind this eyesore was a vintage claw-foot tub, probably original to the house which was built in 1911. In retrospect, I can’t believe I waited over twenty years to find out! After all these years of waiting and hoping, it was a peak experience when we tore away the enclosure to reveal the tub of my dreams with four elegant claw feet! It definitely needed some tender-loving refurbishing, both inside and out but the budget allowed only the outside to be refinished. The refinishing posed some problems. Most porcelain glazing materials are highly toxic. Long before we actually removed the tub, I had inquired of Glo at All Value Paints, (818) 776-0594, about non-toxic coatings I might use instead. At that point I was thinking I would do it myself. Glo suggested AFM’s Safecoat Primer and Gloss Finish for the tub exterior. In the meantime, however, the tub had been uncovered and it became clear to me that the job of refinishing it was beyond my skills and time constraints. I was fortunate to happen upon San Rafael Coating in the Yellow Pages. It had been in business for 19 years. Doug Jones, the proprietor, was very well informed, patient and positively responsive to my inquiries about the toxicity of the glazing material he used. He claimed the material they used, Kott Koating, was non-toxic and gave me the name of the manufacturer in Laguna Hills, CA. I requested a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) from them, which they promptly sent me. It is available for examination at Eco-Home.
The chemical formula for Kott Koating is a trade secret. However, the components they list under the heading Hazarous Ingredients are: titanium dioxide, (which is also an ingredient of my health-store-bought toothpaste!) amorphous silica, aluminum hydroxides and oxygenated triglyceride (vegetable oil). How vegetable oil qualifies as an hazardous ingredient, I don’t know. Under Physical Data, the MSDS indicates that Kott Koating has been found to be non-carcinogenic. Under Health Hazards it states there is no threshold limit and no known effects of overexposure. Recommended emergency and first aid procedures are to treat it as non-toxic vegetable oil. A respirator and eye protection "for any foreign material - non-toxic" is recommended when spraying. An air transfer or air supplied system for work in confined areas is also recommended. Protective overalls are "to be washed with soap and water after exposure." Based on this information and the fact that time was running out, I called Doug and asked him to pick up the tub for refinishing despite warnings from Glo that Kott Koatings, Inc. in Laguna Hills was not registered with the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD). I wished that I had had more time to continue the research, but I just didn’t. Barbara, a resident of Eco-Home, was returning in a week and we were committed to having a finished, working bathroom by the time she returned. The tub and its four feet were picked up by San Rafael Coating on the morning of October. 8, 1999. For $300. the exterior was cleaned, primed and refinished, the feet were cleaned and primed, and everything was delivered back to Eco-Home in three business days! The quality of work was excellent. Everything looked great!
While the tub was being refurbished, Xavier and a helper tore up the floor and realigned the plumbing for the slightly changed placement of the fixtures. Before the tub was re-installed, a hall cabinet had to be built, the new tile floor laid, the walls prepped and the wainscoting installed and painted at least behind and next to the tub. The short time-frame we had for this job created a huge a challenge. To make matters worse, Xavier’s partner, whom he had depended upon to work with him throughout the project, failed to show up and didn’t respond to calls. Not to be defeated, Xavier worked that much harder and longer to try to make up for the manpower deficit. He recruited a couple of relatives who could help only occasionally. Even his wife, Marie Cruz, came in several days to help. Despite all the pressure, Xavier never displayed any irritability, always was willing to patiently answer any questions I had, rectify any problems I might have with anything he had done, rework plans with me, all without a word of complaint or change in his positive attitude. It was by far the most enjoyable working relatinship I’ve ever had with a contractor. From photographs and looking behind old cabinets in the house I guessed that wainscoting had been an original design feature in here. I decided to reinstate it in the bathroom but chose to paint it a soft, earthy peach rather than using the dark wood stain that was usual in early Craftsman houses. Painting rather than staining it enabled me to purchase finger-jointed* wainscoting from Terry Lumber rather than having to use wainscoting made of solid wood paneling. Since the wainscoting near the tub would likely get splashed with water from the shower, I chose Dulux 100% acrylic exterior low-VOC paint. The walls above the wainscoting and the ceiling were painted with eggshell finish, pale yellow Lifemaster 2000, a low VOC interior paint. The trim over the wainscoting is pure white Lifemaster 2000 semi-gloss finish, as is all the rest of the woodwork in the room. There was not much recyclable waste from this project. Although the old sink was still usable, I wanted to replace it with a pedestal style sink I had found at a very reasonable price. Xavier agreed to take the old one to a recycler. I kept the same toilet, a Toto ultra-low flush, and the tub, as mentioned, was refurbished and reinstalled. The under-flooring, which was rotting in places, came up in un-reusable pieces. (The new ceiling fan vent will hopefully eliminate the formation of the mold and mildew that used to occur around the old tub enclosure and in the floor.) For the new hall closet we reused a frame and cabinet doors that I had saved from an original closet that had been enlarged to accommodate the washing machine.
I tried valiantly to reuse the wall-mounted shower curtain rods, but couldn’t find the necessary pieces to convert it into a ceiling-mounted full-surround, with which I hoped to protect the walls from shower water as much as possible. The cost of new rods of this type put them out of range. Much as I don’t like PVC because of the toxins produced in its manufacture, I ended up taking a Rompage Hardware store clerk’s suggestion to construct a new shower curtain surround with white, 3/4 inch PVC pipe. The pieces fit easily together, and held well enough for this purpose without glue. It looks good, works perfectly and cost under $20. However, I do have guilt pangs about using PVC. I cleaned up the old tub faucet fixture with attached shower fixture and reused it, just replacing the handles with ones that match the new sink faucet. The day the tub was returned was a great day. It looked wonderful! Xavier wasn’t quite ready to reinstall it so I got to admire the tub as it sat outside for a couple of days while I finished the claw feet. A timely caution from Doug Jones sent me into my basement to seek out some turned wood waste I had gleaned over twenty years ago for use in a children’s crafts workshop I used to conduct. Doug had pointed out that tiles are vulnerable to cracking from the weight of the big cast iron tub all resting on the less than 1/2" diameter round bottom of the balls under the feet. He suggested placing pieces of wood or metal at least 1-1/2" in diameter under each foot to distribute the weight. In the basement I found the perfect 1-3/4 inch diameter round wood pieces. They even have a little rim to keep the feet from sliding off! (Fig. 4) When painted to match the feet they were hardly noticeable. And, so far, no broken tiles. Once again, I have a guilty confession. I spray painted the feet with Rust-Oleum metallic finish. Oh, what a nasty substance, but oh, how quick and convenient it is! I got just the look of weathered brass that I was striving for in only two coats, each taking about 5 minutes to apply. They were dry in a couple of hours. I longed to change the existing bathroom light fixtures, which I despise, but alas, once again was prevented by cost. So I cleaned, primed and painted them white and on the background of white woodwork they are, if not a design asset, much less offensive. The deadline for finishing the job was upon us and it was clear that we wouldn’t meet it. I called Barbara and asked if she could make other accommodations for two more nights. She agreed, so we were given a short reprieve. At this point Xavier had yet to build the new wall cabinets, finish installing the sink and tub, add another layer of grout on the floor and paint some of the remaining woodwork. We agreed to focus on the sink and tub installation and have him build the cabinets off-site later. Even the floor grouting could wait until after Barbara moved back in, since she worked during the day. As it turned out, Xavier wasn’t able to have the tub fully installed until the day after Barbara returned, but she was very accommodating. It was exciting then to hang the new shower curtain rod and the shower curtains that she had picked out and take our first showers in the new environment. We all agreed it was a masterpiece! Prior to the commencement of the bathroom renovation I had been informed of a source for certified* veneer with agricultural board core in Huntington Park. I met with G/L Veneer CEO Jeffrey Levin who kindly took me through the entire plant and showed me samples of the certified products they offer. The cost was high, but I had determined that this was one environmental requisite I wouldn’t set aside: no matter what, the wood for the new cabinets had to be certified. Although G/L Veneer is geared to servicing commerical customers, Mr. Levin kindly agreed to fill our order when it came time to build the cabinets for Eco-Home. Several weeks later, while browsing in The Home Depot, much to my surprise and excitement I came upon certified plywood from Columbia Forest Products. Though it was about $10 per sheet more than regular plywood, it was close to half the cost of the product I had seen at G/L Veneer. The agricultural board core of the G/L Veneer product did make it more environmentally desirable, and if my budget had been larger I would have chosen it over the plywood. But since I could still meet my certified wood criteria with the Columbia product from The Home Depot without busting my budget I decided in favor of the plywood. Xavier took the wood and my drawings of the cabinets to his home and worked on them there for the next several weeks. It took quite awhile because Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas came along and family activities and other jobs often took precedence. But Xavier kept in touch with me, letting me know what was happening and not long after Christmas brought the finished cabinets to Eco-Home for installation. They were perfect: exactly according to my diagrams and all made of sustainably harvested wood! Finally the bathroom was complete. It took much longer than expected, but the quality of the work was excellent, the work experience had been a pleasure, I met a lot of my environmental goals in the project, and it was brought in within $200 of the $7,000 budget. Despite the fact that it was done so economically, the bathroom remodel did deplete our financial resources, compelling a further postponement of completion of the kitchen renovation. I estimate it will take a year or more to replenish our coffers sufficiently to do the kitchen. In the meantime, don’t forget to use Eco-Home’s information resources to help you make your remodeling an environmental masterpiece! —Julia S. Russell *finger-jointed lumber is fabricated from small diameter trees thereby lessening demand for lumber from our ancient forests. Comment by Hal Giles, posted on 2/21/06 regarding finger-jointed lumber: I was looking for information about wallboard to go behind tile in a bathroom renovation project, and ran across... a footnote at the bottom that is not correct. I am a retired professional forester, whose BScF degree was in logging and sawmilling. I live in Williams Lake, British Columbia, where sawmilling is a major industry. Several mills produce finger-jointed wood, particularly 2x4 and 2x6 studs. Finger jointing was initially done to remove knots from low quality material. We have a lot of lodgepole pine in the area, and while it is smaller than coastal logs, it can go up to 36" in diameter. If the tree grew in an open stand, so that trees weren't close enough together to have branches knocked off during windy weather, the resulting lumber can have a lot of large knots, which weakens it as a structural member. cutting the knotty portions out of the lumber, then joining the clear pieces together (finger-jointing) gives a knot-free product, which is stronger. There is also a straightness factor. Normal logs may have some curve or "sweep" in them. When they are run through a modern sawmill (which handles them at high speed) the resulting boards may also have that sweep. If the 8' length was all one piece, as cut from an individual log, the curvature in the length of the lumber can be objectionable. It's often not apparent when the wood is removed from a shipping bundle, where they've been strapped tightly with bands of steel, but may develop over the next week. When the 8' length is made up of finger-jointed wood, the "sweep" tends to average out, some going to the left, some to the right. There are some jurisdictions (Texas may be one, but I haven't seen documentation for years) that require their wood to have at least three joints per 8' piece, because of this factor. Another similar product being produced here, from lodgepole pine, is laminated shelving. In this case, small strips are cut from 3/4" lumber, knots are removed, and then the "clears" are joined both end-to-end and side-to-side to produce knot-free boards of any dimension required. They are commonly sold in lumber stores as clear pine shelving, and make a beautiful product when finished with a transparent coat. Just as an aside, "ancient forests" is a great buzz-phrase, but doesn't mean much. The lodgepole pine being logged here can be from stands that are 300 years old. Individual trees are considered mature at about 100 - 150 years. The trees in these forests will never get to be the size that people envision when they think of huge coastal fir and cedar. When pine stands get old, they start to lose more volume to rot than they are producing, and become susceptible to insect and disease. Note the current infestation of mountain pine beetle that is wiping out huge tracts in central BC. The infestation built up in stands that have been protected from wildfire, which would be the natural course of events, limiting the amount of old-growth forest. - Hal Giles *certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to be harvested in a sustainable way from a sustainably managed forest. A sustainably managed forest is one in which trees are harvested in such a way that the forest remains intact to continue to perform all the other functions of a forest, such as wildlife habitat, air filtration, carbon sequestering, aquifer and watershed protection, among other things. See pg. 13 for more information on Forest Products Certification. |
