Today, the main vestibule of the church is a hodge podge of flooring. One third of the floors have been stained grey and polyurethaned. The poly is already begjinning to yellow (as is common with that finish). Another third of the floor (in the kitchen) is covered with subfloor and vinyl flooring. The last third is the alter, and it is covered with carpet. Our move-in pictures show the flooring situation best:
In 1929, it was an expanse of seamless Douglas Fir wood floors. So our goal is to remove all the layers and return there. The first step is to discover what is under all that carpet?
Ugh. The sad surprise was that somewhere along the line, someone used tar paper adhesive to glue (probably asbestos) tiling to the floor. So, the first order of business was to scrape up some of that glue and have it tested for asbestos. It was unlikely to contain asbestos, but I thought it was worth checking. I did some research and discovered lots of places who will test materials by mail. So, I pried up some tar from a few different spots and sent it off for testing at Western Alalytical Laboratory in California. Within a week or two, I received a report assuring me that no asbestos was found.
So it was time to move ahead and see how we could remove this tar with the least damage to the wood. There are a finite number of ways to removing this tar paper: heat, steam, scraping, or sanding.
Immediately scraping was not an option. I knew this because someone, sometime had tried that. And in the corner of the church was an area with sizable divets in the wood, clearly caused by a power scraper.
Thankfully there is not too much damage because I suspect someone had the wherewithal to stop scraping and simply install carpet. Phew!
First, I cut a huge square in the carpet and the padding to uncover a large area to work on. I had already purchased an infrared heater for removing paint from a number of places in the church, including the windows. The speed heater is really, really pricey, but I have found it to be worth the cost overall. Also the scrapers that came with it are the best I have found anywhere. So I started with that.
Step #1: Heat. The speed heater worked pretty well for the majority of the tar paper. I applied to heater just long enough to cause bubbling and then used a Dremel scraper to remove the tar paper in as big a sheet as possible. I use the term "sheet" loosely.
Step #2: Steam: Where the speed heater failed, a steamer picked up. I was able to soften what remained enough to be scraped manually. This was a messy task for sure. I had dots of tar on the bottom of my feet for days...almost like I'd been playing on an LA beach without all the fun and sun.
Step #3: Sand. Only when the floor was completely dried from the steam (I waited several days), did I sand the area with a simple hand sander to see how clean it could get it. And this is what I got.
The question we are left with is whether it is worth the labor to remove all this tar paper ourselves and rent a sander to finish the floors OR whether this is the job where hiring an outside person would be best. But we've reached a short term goal: we know what we have and what it will take to do the work ourselves.
