Pavement as a floor?????

[Stephen D. Gazo]

Hey guys, I was reading somewhere here and an HI mentioned that the floors were pavement...wow...Okay, I have seen concrete, dirt, wood, manf wood. But this raises many questions:

1. Does the oil not stink

2. Since it is fairly porous wouldnt it collect/trap water/beer and pretzel debris

3. Fire rating was mentioned? With all the oil in this stuff I would assume that it is somewhat flammable.

I also missed where this was located, I am gonna guess southern USA. Who here would think that it is a selling point.

mongo

(feeling perplexed)

[kurt]

I was the guy that said he saw it and thought possibly someone had a misguided idea about fire separations. I didn't say it was a fire separation.

It's a doofus idea. I don't think anyone was advocating blacktop flooring, just describing it.

One thing will become apparent if you do this job for a while. You'll see things that are completely idiotic, with no basis in anything other than someone thought it would be a good idea.

[Stephen D. Gazo]

point taken, couldnt find the topic again so wasnt claiming accurate info...so youve seen this, what do you think was the motivation, money, the avail of blacktop.

I know that people will do things that are out there and no explanation will ever justify their actions.

I mentioned it to some soldier buddies and they reminded me how many times we set up our tents in parking lots, having a blacktop floor sorta. Keeping and open mind...smile and wave boys, smile and wave

[Jim Morrison]

I've seen it done a couple of times, and while it doesn't make sense to me, either, I don't think it's a defect. A little kooky, perhaps, but I couldn't think of a way it could become problematic. I don't recall them smelling, and I think you'd have to work pretty danged hard to set it on fire. In MA, there are far more wooden floors out there than bituminous concrete floors, and I think those present a bigger problem.

[Stephen D. Gazo]

In my last career I pretty much stopped being suprised or found things as odd. I am looking forward to lifes little amusements in this trade. As an independant contractor I have seen some amazing work that homeowners have attempted/started/scewed up and stopped. From blatant wiring gone way wrong to home additions that kept going wrong for over a century.

You guys must laugh your hasps off,,, if its safe enough.

[Inspectorjoe]

You know Mongo, for me, one of the fringe benefits of this gig is seeing the inner workings of cool and unusual buildings and having a never ending stream of bizarre and wacky stuff to discover.

On that same inspection that I ran across the blacktopped second floor was a Pennsylvania bank barn that was divided up into multiple levels of stockrooms. It was the most concentrated collection of trip and fall hazards I've ever encountered - not to mention being a deathtrap if a fire would ever break out.

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I have hundreds and hundreds of pictures of goofy things people have done to buildings. Somebody told me that I should put them on a web site. So I registered stupidhousetricks.com and paid for hosting for a year. That's as far is it got. I just got a notice from Godaddy that my year of paid hosting is ready to expire. To GD's credit, they did call me last January and said they noticed that I hadn't put a site up yet and wondered if I needed any help.

Maybe I'll make doing that site a New Year's resolution and finally get it off the ground. Til then, my picture collection will only get bigger!