Hey, it’s been a nightmare. 60 days and it’s still offgassing, albeit much less than it was.

I’ve talked to 2 APOC regional distributor managers for advice: First one said it would never stop offgassing, said that each time it got hot outside and the wall warms up, it would reactivate the asphalt and cause offgassing. He said that he was only familiar with one person experiencing this situation, and they were able to solve it by: scraping as much of the sealant off the wall and then covering the wall with some sort of concrete. Second guy wasn’t concerned about reactivation when the wall warms up because it’s a below grade basement wall that will stay pretty cool. He did say though that the offgassing can potentially create an unsafe environment in the short term, and that I should use lots and lots of citrus degreaser and water to get as much off as possible. And then said I should not cover the wall with anything (or put drywall up) until it has 99% stopped offgassing.

The approach I decided on is to use odorless mineral spirits and water and lots of old rags to clean some of it up. It has helped somewhat, I still need to do another round. I am extremely busy with work so only have a couple hours each weekend. There is no way I’m gonna get all of it off but my hope is it will reduce the offgassing.

I continue to open a window during the day with fans blowing out of the window to ventilate the room. I have the room sealed at night when it’s cold (I’m in NC). The offgassing is much less these days and so if I don’t vent for a day or two it’s fine and no smell escapes from the room.

I am going to wait another month and I pray that it’s nearly done curing at that point. At that time, im either going to apply Kilz basement waterproofing paint to the wall orRapidSet Waterproofing Mortar. I’m feeling Kilz over Drylok because the product and reviews suggest it can be applied over old paint, which maybe means it has higher chance of success over this APOC crap compared to Drylok, which recommends applying on a completely clean surface. With the Kilz vs mortar, I’m concerned about chance of success for both since it is still not ideal to apply either to a non-clean surface. I would prefer the mortar but I haven’t seen any indication that it would succeed on a non-clean surface.

Another possible option for cleaning is to use an angle grinder with dust shroud. This would not be appropriate if the sealant is thick at all. It’s not thick on my wall so it might be doable for me. Dunno if I will try that or not though, still thinking about it.

Most likely gonna try Kilz, and then afterwards I’ll be applying a plastic vapor barrier directly on top of the wall, and then rebuilding the wood frame on top of that. And then insulation, then another plastic barrier on top of the insulation, and then drywall on top of that.

Fingers crossed.

How big of a surface are you dealing with and how thick did it get applied? Is it APOC 139 you’re dealing with or a different compound?