I think root stimulator should work nicely. I've been told that several weedkillers commonly used kill the plant, but does not penetrate the soil. When you move iris, often they grow new roots anyway. I think I would mix in some nice compost, & plant them where you plan they be permanently. I sure wouldn't compost them, iris are amazingly resilient.

There is some controversy about single time exposure to air containing a 'significant number' of fibers and the possible onset of disease later in life. We're talking several decades after significant and repeated exposure when onset of an asbestos-related disease might manifest. Still, highly unlikely that a single-time exposure to a significant number of fibers (whatever that means) will cause disease. If the building manager scraped walls and did other work to pulverize and make the ACM friable and that was decades ago, then perhaps that work was partly responsible for her disease. Did she smoke? As for your possible exposures...probably nothing to worry about. I would remain vigilant about other renovations that occur in the buildings, especially because you know they contain ACMs. I worked a high profile flooring job in a high income, exclusive Manhattan apartment building...and I was stunned by the level of disregard (criminal by today's laws and regulations) by a demolition contractor of residents of the building. I walked into a passenger elevator and there stood a worker with a loose bag of obvious asbestos debris that he was carting down to a dumpster outside. Because the doors shut behind me, I simply held my breath and got out at the next stop. Suffice it ti say...I was flabergasted! You have more of a chance of being killed by a drunken driver or by your own negligence driving our interstate highways, than you have of developing an asbestos-related disease. Do I know people who have died from an asbestos-related disease? Absolutely. Were they occupational exposures? Yes. Other lung cancer deaths? Anyone's guess.

Hi, I know this is an old post, but I it sounds a little similar to my problems. And I wanted to get this board's opinion on how I should proceed. I've been lurking reading as much as I can for a bit now. We have an old pool in our house (don't know exactly how old it is, but I'm guessing about 30 years old). It's been re-tiled once. And they poured concrete around it at least once that we know of before we moved in. The concrete was poured incorrectly (or not sure exactly what), but the tiles are popping out it seems that it doesn't have the layer to help it absorb the concrete expansion. And after one of the last earthquakes we had there are a couple of cracks as well. I recently put in all new equipment (pump, filter and heater) because I thougt at least this way we could keep it clean and functioning. I've gotten a couple of quotes (somewhat close in $) to re-cope, replaster and retile. The issue is that none of them mentioned doing a leak test. As a matter of fact one of them went as far as to say that they would not guarantee that the cracks would not come back and that they will not leak. There's a deck that surrounds it partially. I paid for someone to come and wash it and stain it but they found that it starting to rotting in a few places. So now, I'm thinking that the pool is indeed leaking and I need to get the pool done before I try and rip out the deck and put a new one. But re-doing the pool and deck is a huge job and I will need to do it in stages. My question is: what should I watch out for in regards to the pool? should I call one of those Detect Leak places before I call a PB? How can I stagger the work over a few years to spread the cost? At the end of it, is it worth it to spend around $15K to get the pool done when it might still leak. thanks for your input!

Are you working with an architect that can level-set the bids for you? They basically go through each one to make sure that the bids are truly comparable in terms of what is included. If not, ask them to include as much line item detail as they can. The $40k might not include things like windows, doors, lights etc while the other includes an allowance. In addition, it's not unheard of for there to be errors in bids especially if it's a big variance (our architect told us a story about a bid that too good to be true bid and it was because the GC completely forgot to include the cost of drywall, which apparently was a pretty big expense for that job). We're in No Jersey, so it's expensive, but probably not as high as your area. We have newer home so while we had a lot of structural/layout changes (removed wall, moved door and window, moved every appliance, added tons of lights), the plumbing and electric was relatively new (no knob and tube, etc). Our GC portion alone is $42k, which includes a $3.5k allowance for the window and door. That makes me think your $40k bid is low and may result in additional costs as the project goes on (lots of surprises in older homes, so be prepared for that anyway!).