On the Level
by Terry Meany
In the 1970s the idea of "global cooling" was a hot topic, one that sold plenty of books and booked the TV appearances of scientists who normally couldn't get Saturday night dates. Next, and currently, we have global warming, which may or may not prove to be a more accurate appraisal of coming weather events. Perhaps by 2020 or so we'll have the theory of global lukewarming, which sounds much easier to contend with and will severely disappoint real-estate speculators buying up western Nevada in the hopes that it will become the new West Coast.
In San Francisco, December was cold, a fantasy destroyer for a city that advertises a temperate climate. It doesn't get cold often enough to warrant, say, replacing all older single-pane windows with insulated glass, or weather stripping all entry doors, but some measures could cut down on drafts without breaking a budget. These measures would also keep tenants from setting up a 24-7 web cam of their curtains blowing around from drafty windows and doors. In other words, warmer weather doesn't mitigate the need for weather stripping.
Weather stripping comes in various flavors, from the expensive, almost artisan category to the simple, anyone-can-install-it type. They all have their place. It just depends on your budget and degree of handiness.
Way back when, weather stripping was almost exclusively metal, with either interlocking or some form of spring bronze. Interlocking required the installer to remove a door or window, rout out the edges, install one section of the weather stripping in the routed areas, and then install the corresponding weather stripping in the door or window jamb respectively. This was not (and is not, for the few installers who still work with this material), an inexpensive procedure, but the weather stripping lasted forever and formed a decent seal. Custom builders will install it today when requested, but you’ll never see it in ordinary homes and buildings.
If you have interlocking weather striping and it has gotten bent in places or seems to be more of a hindrance than a help, I would advise a careful examination of the weather stripping, looking for flattened, bent or loose sections. Straighten them out with a chisel-type putty knife, bending until the weather stripping aligns properly. Set any loose nails and scrape off paint buildup. I've salvaged hundreds of windows and not a few doors with interlocking weather stripping—the material was almost always salvageable.
Spring bronze comes in rolls of flat metal strips and is still available at many hardware stores. It's nailed to a jamb and does an arguably better job than its interlocking cousin because it spans larger gaps between doors and windows and their jambs. Anyone can install it; all you need are a hammer and metal snips, no routers required. A standard roll is 17-feet long, enough for one door, although much longer rolls can be ordered if you have a larger weather-stripping project. Unlike vinyl and felt weather stripping, metal weather stripping is much easier to paint around and clean off after paint spills.
Most weather stripping installed today is typically some form of vinyl seal that is tucked into a doorjamb and compresses when the door is closed. Windows use a similar material, narrower than what is found in doors. Vinyl works, but it's never as precise a fit as interlocking material and can prevent a door from closing firmly against the jamb because of its thickness. It's often better for retrofitting older doors with noticeable gaps between the edges of the door and the jamb. Another alternative, especially if you're of the quick-but-does-the-job school of maintenance is V-strip, a self-adhesive vinyl. 3M and Pemko are major brands that make V-strip. It installs best on either clean, bare wood or primed wood, but will adhere to paint if you scuff the paint first with sandpaper and then wipe off the dust. It's not a terrific solution, but it helps and can be easily reinstalled if it pulls off or becomes damaged. V-strip works acceptably with casement windows and doors, less so with double-hung. All you need is scissors and a clean surface to install V-strip.
There are various adhesive-backed foams, both closed cell and open cell, available in hardware store weather-stripping aisles. None will last as long as metal weather stripping, but all will cut down on drafts. Be sure that whatever you install does not prevent the windows or doors from closing and locking properly. I saw the results of one moronic construction superintendent who installed thick, foam weather stripping to cut down on what he thought were drafts coming from the windows in an old hotel converted to apartments. All he managed to do was prevent the windows from completely closing and thereby created real drafts. He was the same superintendent who thought it was cost effective to have a $20-an-hour laborer spend the day picking up scrap cardboard to sell to a recycler for about, oh, $20 a truck load.
Weather stripping will not transform your rental into a cozy, uniformly warm, state-of-the-art, efficient living space, but it can reduce major leaks and placate concerned tenants.
Tenants and Their Hobbies
Let's face it, thanks to rent control, some of your tenants are lifers or close to it. People have other interests besides paying you as little rent as possible. How far do you go in accommodating stamp collectors, taxidermists, motorcycle mechanics and others? Like so much else in the landlord-tenant relationship, it depends.
A philatelist might ask for a more secure door to protect those little sticky pieces of paper normally attached to the mail, but highly valued by the deranged. You should have no problem allowing a tenant to install an extra lock with a reinforced strike, provided you are given a key for emergencies. An existing door can be somewhat reinforced by screwing plywood to its interior side and installing longer hinge screws. No problem, again, as long as the tenant removes the plywood and allows for filling the screw holes and professionally repainting the door upon vacating the apartment. If it's a stained and varnished door, then you have a problem because neither filling the holes with wood putty nor using a putty stick will disguise or hide them. You must discuss the consequences with your tenant up front, since this can require replacing the door unless you opt to leave the plywood attached. In that case, you should insist on cabinet-grade material that will be as smooth as your interior doors.
Adding plywood to a door increases its weight. A three-foot by six-foot sheet of three-quarter-inch plywood can weigh around 40 pounds. Negotiating the addition of a professionally-installed third or fourth door hinge is not unreasonable.
Unless you want to replace ceilings and floor boards, ardent exercisers and would-be Schwarzeneggers will have to do their heavy lifting at the gym. Light dumbbells—light meaning maybe up to 15 pounds—could be acceptable with the understanding nothing gets dropped on the floor. You could mandate that the tenant exercise over a half-inch thick rubber floor pad, the same type used at gyms to protect their floors. Jumping jacks are out, too, unless it's a basement apartment with a concrete floor.
What about car and motorcycle repairs? In a shared garage, there are several concerns: safety (solvents and loose parts on the floor are a bad mix), a car restoration infringing on another tenant’s space, and starting a bad trend. Motor repairs often mean starting up and revving an engine, filling a garage with toxic (and annoying) fumes. Outlawing all repairs can be tough on a tenant who needs to replace an alternator, for instance—a generally nonmessy repair that's done in an afternoon. On the other hand, it's an easy policy that forces a tenant to find another repair spot. This gets you off the hook; and you avoid trying to formulate a policy of limited mechanical work that you know will be abused. If you do come up with something you and the tenants can live with, at least mandate that plastic be spread on the floor and all parts put away at the end of the day if the repairs aren't completed.
You might receive more unusual requests, such as setting up an apiary (beehive). Before you get thrown for a loop, take a look at the San Francisco Beekeepers' Association's website (www.sfbee.org) and decide for yourself. You could run into trouble if you have a no-pets policy and other tenants interpret the bees as such (this isn't a stretch in this town). I would certainly hold the line on anyone wanting to start a pigeon aviary.
Finally, a walk through the Folsom Street Fair will show even a worldly observer that some people need certain equipment other than what they were born with to fulfill their intimate pursuits. Some of this equipment is heavy and requires that it be bolted to floors, walls and/or ceilings. You are not stifling freedom of expression by refusing permission to drill through your hardwood floors in order to install certain apparatuses in need of secure anchoring.
Looked at another way, making allowances for certain hobbies could be part of a unit's marketing appeal if you want to go that route. There is no shortage of personal expression in San Francisco. Accommodating certain tastes and values could give you a leg up when units become available for rent. This way, at least you can control it and be assured that the above-mentioned installations are done safely and without damaging your units. After that, it's like Las Vegas: what happens in your rentals stays in your rentals.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of SFAA or SF Apartment Magazine. Terry Meany is a former contractor and landlord. He is now a full-time writer and author of Working Windows: A Guide to the Repair and Restoration of Wood Windows, now in its second edition from Lyons Press. He can be reached at tfmeany@msn.com. Copyright © 2007 by SF Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.