Quote from fuzzyscorpio on Jul 10^th, 2010, 12:46pm:

 
It is my understanding that the Doris Vernon is to be demolished, and was being "prepped" for it last week.  So, if it's still around and you'd like to see it before it's gone, I'd consider doing it very soon...

Quote from jet on Jul 18^th, 2010, 1:38pm:

That had to be music to your ears, given that the market is still so skewed to the buyer. Good luck with the sale, and thanks for sharing your experience with asbestos.
 
Quote from MMM on Jul 19^th, 2010, 9:50pm:

Thanks for the warning. If I already had plans to visit the island in the near future I'd attempt to pay my respects to the DV. But it looked so bad by last September that I snapped two pictures (posted in my trip report here) and practically ran away. So sad. The fire code violation sign that apparently was hung on the door the day of the 2009 fire was still there as the second picture shows, and the DV just looked really forlorn. I'm not eager to see it looking still worse, as it probably does by now. If only someone had cared enough not to let this happen to a once-pretty building, which I will remember by my earlier pictures and the one Al shared with us in this post. I hope no one got any undeserved compensation out of that fire, but it wouldn't be the first time, of course.
 
Quote from warren on Jul 19^th, 2010, 10:12pm:

Asbestos, aluminum, vinyl... it's all the same, it's all about wanting to perform very little maintenance very infrequently. All such convenience comes at a price, which is not always fully disclosed at the time of the transaction. This single principle has dominated American life since the 1950s and accounts for many of the environmental and health issues that are biting us in the butt now. </soapbox>
 
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Not familiar with the term "lap," but "wooden" always sounds good... Wondering if you have considered stripping the house down to the wooden siding? I'd like to learn more about the costs involved with such a project. I suppose they have to give you a range depending on the as-yet-unseen condition of the older layer... I saw a conversation on some forum where someone wanted advice on repairing a section of asbestos siding that got damaged somehow (weather I think) and one of the replies, from someone supposedly employed in building trades, urged the poster to pay a professional to do it, for safety reasons. I would probably extend that even to painting, but then, I'm chicken—not that dealing with contractors is exactly a stroll on the boardwalk.   Good luck with whatever you end up doing.

Quote from warren on Jul 20^th, 2010, 6:42pm:

Oh, I don't doubt that. Especially since you mentioned your grandfather having put the siding on. That means it dates back to "B.C." (Before Crapworld  ). One thing I know for sure about my dream house, wherever it may be: it was built no later than 1960.  
 
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Sounds right intuitively but has that been demonstrated or measured in any way? Is there any chance that application of paint could actually dry out the siding material and make it more prone to peeling or flaking?  
 
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No, I should have gotten that, thanks for explaining.
 
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Probably a now-or-never proposition. Once you've invested all the sweat equity required for painting the current exterior, I can't imagine you'd turn around a few years later and rip it all off. (Which I still maintain is a job for a specialist... but of course, they'll charge you specialist prices.)

I hate to burst anyone's bubble - or should I say "encapsulated workspace" - but the majority of time spent on painting is in the prep work. There's scraping, patching and repair – and all this comes before the paint can is opened. I'd worry about what's involved in prepping the work surface rather than the painting. There are rollers of varying thickness that can be used to cover rough and textured surfaces, so painting would be a breeze.
 
It's funny that I'm having an asbestos conversation 20 years after it came up in graduate school. I remember one class where a graduate assistant was talking about preserving and maintaining historic surfaces, and I referenced the asbestos-sided rooming houses and hotels in Wildwood. I said that even though the changes came later, the material seemed to define certain areas of the resort. His response: "You should always restore the original surface" or something equally dismissive. I was corrected, but not persuaded.   Even today, I like the look of the diamond-pattern shingles on older buildings. The Avalon has them, as does the Doris Vernon. They seem to be part of the resort's "look" and history. Whether or not a building has asbestos shingles matters little when I'm on vacation. Truthfully, I'm more interested in the sanitation of the motel room.
 
To Warren: I'm kind of with your wife on this one, but I'll take things a little further. I imagine it would be stressful and expensive to turn your house into a hazmat site. And you never know the damage that was caused to the clapboards when the asbestos shingles were installed. I'd let sleeping dogs lie.
 
 
 
 
 

Sherwin-Williams is a good source for painting advice. If you don't want to take an asbestos shingle to a store, there are similar materials that could work. I didn't know until I Googled it, but this company makes a concrete-fiber shingle that could be used to replace a bad or missing shingle. See below.
 
http://www.gaf-weatherside.com/?gclid=CITHqpuP_qICFdFO5wodthgWeA