Stripped ease

The day the painters set my house on fire, I knew I’d made a tactical error by not showing them the proper way to strip. Strip paint, that is. My contractor was the kind of guy who sees paint peeling off the clapboards and his fingers start itching to light up the propane torch.

I had heard about the Speedheater, a new technology from Sweden that involved using infrared heaters to remove paint. It's supposed to be safer, fairly fast, and environmentally friendly, but he’d have none of it. Winter was setting in and he didn’t have time to learn new tricks. He’d done it his way for years and never had an accident, blah, blah. (You know where this is going and, yes, I was insane to go along with it.)

Although it was satisfying to see a century of old paint come off bit by bit, I couldn’t watch as his workers put flame to wood, especially one guy we dubbed “Pyro” who left a trail of scorch marks. Nor could I breathe, and we moved out to my mother-in-law's after a couple of days to escape the smoke, fumes, and lead dust.

Then we got the call from a neighbor that everyone dreads: The fire department is at your house.

We raced over to find a hole ripped in the side of our 1890 farmhouse from basement to eaves, the result of an ember igniting some ancient detritus between the clapboards. Fortunately, the crew had spotted the smoke and turned on the hose before dialing 911, thereby averting an all-out disaster.

Still, the place was a mess. I finally woke up. Another person might have sued the contractor, but isn't this what insurance companies are for? I was willing to forgive an accident—as long as he finished the job on my terms. I called the nearest Speedheater distributor, Eco-Strip, and told my tale of woe to owner Catherine Brooks.

She zipped over to demonstrate the Speedheater 1100 infrared paint remover as well as a delicious array of first-rate hardened steel scraping tools and “hands-free” attachments. This electric tool uses infrared heat to penetrate through the paint into the wood, so multiple layers can be scraped off with little damage to the wood. Unlike a heat gun or torch, the rays evenly heat the paint to no more than 600 degrees—well below the temperature at which wood ignites or lead fumes are released. It also works well on glass putty and varnish. The tool, used in Europe for more than a decade, is available to rent (about $24 a day, 3 day minimum) or buy (about $400). Eco-Strip was local for me, but they ship anywhere in the continental U.S.

My contractor, as was his wont, griped that the tool was awkward, but his crew—amazed to be free of fume-induced headaches—soon got the hang of Speedheating and finished the stripping in just a few days. Repairing the fire damage took considerably longer, of course, but the contractor conceded that he was able to make up for lost time since the Speedheated areas required no sanding before priming. Thus, two converts were born. He bought a set for himself and I vowed to stick to my guns—just not a heat gun.

Eco-Strip; 703-476-6222; eco-strip.com; contact via email at cbrooks@eco-strip.com.