The age and color. I routinely work in old buildings in my area that potentially have asbestos, and so I've tried to learn what types of materials may have it. I ran across something similar to this before in my area that was tested and positive, but it wasn't my problem to deal with then.

Will do once I get the glue up! Not going to risk it with the mastic on there though :/

I can sympathize with that lol, grew up in a very DIY family and that's just how I was raised. Plus we live in a rural area so contractors are expensive and have very little competition.

I've rented a floor sander from Home Depot before, but I'm not sure if it was a true orbital sander or not - wasn't a belt sander though - and it worked very well. I have a few connections, plumbing and electrical. And now that you mention it, maybe even a floor sander. I had forgotten I have a coworker who I think has one he might lend. Thanks!

Thanks! Have the Tyvek suits already and a p100 respirator. Also already have 6mil plastic sheeting on site due to a separate clean up issue ( mice 😞 )

Noted, I sure hope so!

Thanks! Have you found any one brand to have a better product?

The good news here is that I've only got less than 250 sq. feet to do, so if I have to work in small sections it's not a deal breaker. I am wary of using diesel though, maybe I could try a small patch.

Thanks! I have access to a buffer already. I refinished our deck a year or two ago with a floor sander I rented, but for this project that's for after I get this mastic up. I'll probably be finishing the floors myself this time as well.

Thank you for the input! Looks like I'll be pulling out my heat gun!

Thanks! That's the plan!

Ok, thank you. I have a wallpaper steamer at home so I'll try that!

Thanks! I appreciate your input!

Not Cali, more like the Colorado Plateau region :)

The plan is to eventually sand everything and re-varnish it, but 90% of the house is hardwood in seemingly good shape. I was honestly hoping for some miracle cure that might let me just wipe the old mastic off 😂 It's still slightly tacky so there was a hope

I know it's a vain hope. The plan is to fully sand and refinish the whole house at some point, but if I can get away with not having to for the next year while I'm remodeling it would be a bonus. But the flooring above needs to go now unfortunately.

I only mentioned the asbestos in the first place because I knew people would warn about it. If it were friable I would be much more concerned, but the tile appears to be taking most of the mastic with it and my understanding is that the tile is the greater of the two evils. I've been around abatement teams and seen how they operate, and truthfully if I'm gonna die of lung cancer it'll most likely be from the air quality in wildfire season ¯_(ツ)_/¯

You never know, that could come in handy.... /s

Thanks for the reply, have a sample to test when ready. I'm not sure I have the steady hand to keep it from biting the wood unfortunately :(

I had seen a guy doing that on his concrete floors, but I was under the impression steam is very bad for hardwood floors?

Agreed, though I will say to date I've never had 1GbE impacted significantly by length and I've surpassed the max many times. Definitely depends on the existing environment.

In general, I don't run pre-terminated Ethernet. I find it far far easier to pull it and then terminate it myself. You can find spools of it on Amazon, and then you'd need to buy the proper tools to terminate (about $100-150 investment including a bigger spool). You can try buying a premade cable and pulling it with a fish tape and line, but depending on the size of the conduit you may get stuck.

Yes, you can. But be very sure that it's actually empty, if you're not sure how to check - hire an electrician to check.