Quote:
Originally Posted by drew
Lead paint is harmless unless you decide you want to strip it from the walls using a heat gun.
|
Or have kids. Biggest reason it was banned was because children have this annoying habit of chewing on everything. Paint also has a tendency to flake off on its own, given enough time.
Quote:
Asbestos insulation in turn of the century houses is a very remote possibility. You're lucky if you even have sawdust in the walls.
Asbestos tiles are basically harmless.
|
Or shredded newspaper. I think some of this stuff might actually have a negative R value.
Nothing like a $500 gas bill. Asbestos *anything* is mostly harmless, until disturbed. Mmmm, friable, carcinogenic materials.
Quote:
|
And old furnaces slowly filling your house with CO? Please - most old houses don't use the furnaces they were built with. I have a 100 year old house, and the high efficiency furnace is pushing 4 years old now...
|
MOST is a strong word - an awful lot of older homes use incredibly antiquated heating systems. I don't think they're exactly pumping your house full of CO, but they do tend to run very inefficiently.
1ajs has a bit of a point, new houses have all sorts of interesting smells. Fresh paint is something you either like or you don't. New carpets shed a ton of fibres in the first year, it's basically a daily vaccuum in high traffic areas or you have little balls of lint all over the place. But the "OMG chemicals!" angle is amusing. People DO realize that every house was at some point new, right? And in years past we often used some pretty dangerous materials in construction? It's not like people were dying like flies in the good old days when they moved into a new house.
Good to see I'm not the only evil non 20-something on this forum, IntotheWest.
