Your Place: Institute website offers painting tips
Spring will be here before you know it (stop laughing!), and that means finally tackling that room you were planning to paint. Or even the whole house.
Spring will be here before you know it (stop laughing!), and that means finally tackling that room you were planning to paint. Or even the whole house.
The Paint Quality Institute recently launched an interactive new website at www.paintquality.com that's full of information you need to prepare for any interior or exterior paint job.
The institute's Debbie Zimmer says the site has advice on painting every conceivable surface, from concrete to countertops.
Included are articles on topics such as surface preparation, the benefits of using sustainable paints, safety tips, and other expert guidance.
Question: We recently put my mother's condo up for sale. We received an offer, and during their inspection, radon was found to be 7.3 picocuries per liter.
The condo association feels mitigation is our responsibility. We thought it would be the condo association's since we don't own the ground, and that's where the radon is. What do you think?
Answer: I thought this would be a tough one, but I located Melissa M. Garcia, a lawyer with Hinman Sanchez in Loveland, Colo., who wrote:
"Typically, the association would not be responsible for mitigating radon found inside the unit boundaries. The party responsible for removing radon depends on where the radon is found and who is required, under the declaration, to maintain the area in which the radon is found."
"Most condominium declarations require the owner to maintain the unit, which would include the air space within the unit boundaries. If, therefore, radon is found in the airspace of the unit, the owner would be responsible for mitigating it. On the other hand, if radon is found inside the common elements such as the crawl space . . . the association would be required to mitigate the radon if it is in excess of acceptable levels."
"The association's responsibility for mitigating radon extends to the common elements only, unless the declaration states otherwise, or the association's own negligence causes the need for radon mitigation."