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Lots of Problems with the Greenies Trying to Salvage Stuff from the Buildings Coming
January 24, 2009
9:44 AM
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Forum Posts: 30
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September 18, 2005
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Personally I think much of the hysteria around lead paint, asbestos and UL ratings on lamps borders on insanity. There's no question lead and asbestos are bad, though both come out of the earth to begin with. One industry (pipe organ building) where lead and lead/tin is used extensively in the pipework, workers work with sheet lead and lead/tin all day cutting, trimming, filing, soldering, even blowing air via mouth into small pipes to test them when done, they get periodic blood tests.

Common safety precautions are in order for it- WASH your hands after handing lead eliminates it, dont handle lead and then eat a sandwich w/o washing your hands.
The way the media hypes this stuff up it's like just looking at a PHOTO of some lead is going to cause it to jump off the page and into your blood and instantly poison you!

Asbestos is best just left where it is, encapsulated if possible, removing it and putting it elsewhere contaminates TWO locations instead of one.

As bad as asbestos is for LONG TERM breathing of it (as are ALL dusts) fiberglass insulation is the next asbestos, Owens-Corning and Johns-Mannsville have teams of lawyers on staff to ditch lawsuits over the stuff. Installers and homeowners have developed lung problems from the fine glass particles. The makers claim the glass somehow breaks down in the lungs, anyone ever see GLASS just dissolve and "break down"? does even acid do it? no! those particles go in the lungs and stay there.

Google; "fiberglass lawsuits" there's plenty of case histories, especially of installers working with it, employees making the stuff, and homeowners whose install in the attic was defective and spewing glass fibers throughout heating system ductwork into the entire house.

As far as UL goes, it's nice, but on a plain LAMP not an electronic, balasted etc the only thing they certify is the incandescent SOCKET, the socket you buy at the hardware store is UL listed, the wiring is not certified, the wiring can be installed by a licensed electrician like any other hookup job in your premises.
I had a UL listed space heater's fan stop working and the coils inside set fire to the plastic housing on the outside because there was no air going thru the coils to keep them from getting red hot, waking up to a 2 foot high flame was no fun! UL anymore is useless in my opinion.

Incandescents wont go away entirely and the mercury in CF bulbs is going to be the NEXT municipal waste nightmare when everyone either starts dumping them in the trash, they get broken, or they have to start paying $10 a bulb disposal fees.
CF bulbs use the same socket incandescents do, the sockets are not going away.
Personally I do not trust PLASTIC encased CF bulbs made in CHINA to be safe, I had one get hot and start smoking, the things can easily catch fire since they are cheap plastic, I'm going back to incandescents and plan to buy a large supply of the size I normally use- in the long winter nights they provide a little extra heat to the room as well, always good, so skrew em!

June 17, 2008
11:01 PM
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Wolf
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"Green buildings use durable materials that are salvaged, have recycled content or came from rapidly renewable resources. These materials significantly reduce the environmental destruction associated with the extraction, processing and transportation of virgin materials."

So reads a prominent display in the building department of one of America's most environmentally progressive cities. It's meant to exhort architects, builders and homeowners to reuse building materials that already exist - an extremely worthy goal, to be sure.

The trouble is that the building codes enforced by this very same department often make it difficult or impossible to follow the advice. It is not just one city's problem. Current building codes simply aren't formulated to accommodate the reuse of salvaged materials, leaving well-intentioned green builders caught in a classic Catch-22: As a matter of public policy, many progressive cities encourage the recycling of building materials, yet as a matter of administrative practice they make their use either economically impractical or else outright illegal.

A common example: Modern codes require safety glazing in all glass doors and in many windows. Yet the overwhelming majority of glass doors gleaned from architectural salvage, along with most of the windows, have plain glass, which cannot comply with these requirements.

What's more, the cost of re-glazing, say, a pair of old French doors with code-compliant glass would typically far outstrip their value. Faced with this reality, most homeowners will either install such noncompliant doors on the sly or else abandon the whole idea of using recycled materials and buy new doors instead.

As you might guess, the legal reuse of salvaged electrical items is equally problematic. Many local jurisdictions, for instance, require all newly installed lighting fixtures to carry an Underwriters Laboratories label - a standard that many old fixtures, even those rewired with modern components for safety, cannot meet. What's more, many state energy conservation codes no longer permit fixtures that use traditional incandescent bulbs (which constitute the vast majority of the salvage stock) in rooms such as kitchens, baths, laundries and garages, making it even more difficult to recycle such items.

On top of everything else, local restrictions dealing with lead paint and asbestos (the sale of both was outlawed only in 1978) may further dissuade those wishing to use salvaged materials.

Lead paint is practically a given on older items such as doors, windows or cabinets. Asbestos can show up in vintage ironing board cabinets, clinging to the backs of old heating registers, and in older appliances such as toasters and heaters. The presence of these materials can hardly be considered a dire threat inasmuch as they're also found in millions of existing homes, and in general, building officials tolerate them in existing work. Still, as regulations dealing with lead and asbestos inevitably become more restrictive, they, too, will become barriers to widespread recycling.

As if these troubles weren't enough to discourage would-be green builders from recycling old materials (many of which are far superior to new ones), there are other hurdles to negotiate. Next time, we'll look at some more instances in which well-meaning green builders can find themselves colliding with the codes.

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