Thought I’d relate a recent experience. Bought a 1979 fixer-upper in a great neighborhood. On a hunch, I sent off samples of the still-intact original vinyl flooring, the soon-to-be-removed ceiling texturing and the sheet rock compound to a lab for analysis. The flooring came back with a 25% asbestos content. Even though asbestos was banned from building materials in ’77, the builder apparently put some old material down when he built the place. Sure glad I checked before we took the scraper to the stuff! Since it’s still tight, we’ll screw some CBU down over the vinyl and tile it. Pays to check (20 bucks per sample, less than a week lead time). BTW- I’m a respiratory therapist by trade, properly paranoid…
Karl Kaminski
Greenville, NC
Replies
So just how many of your clients are asbestos cases?
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I live in eastern NC, where tobacco is still king and a much bigger health threat. The majority of mesothelioma cases we see are work-related illness- not terribly common, but very devastating when they occur. Like everything else in life, we choose our risks. No reason why a remodeling job can't be done carefully.
not challenging that point. even regular dust is and irritant and sawdust is a carcinogen now.but you said something about properly paranoid so I thought you might have firsthand experience with it. I stand ready to be corrected on this, but as I understand it, there was serious evidence not allowed in court with all the class action suits over the asbestos - that it was only the workers who smoked that suffered from the inhalation. Seems that the tars in the cigarettes caused worse scarring and inhibited the ability of the lungs to expectorate and heal.I have amodest personal interest in that I once worked with loose airborne asbestos fibres and hot asphalt and pitch. I do not smoke cigs and I only have some asthma and allergy but no deep lung disease. If you have knowledge of short term asbestos exposure causing problems in patients, I would be glad to know of it.
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I've been led to understand that asbestos is only carcinogenic in dust form. If that's the case, the actual health threat from removing sheet flooring containing asbestos is minimal - the bigger problem as I see it is disposal.
Hey Paul
HAs anyone done any studies on immunity to saw dust and asbestos?
I can't begin to tell you how many houses I ripped asbestos siding off of and watched and breathed the fibers in the air way back when and
saw dust??? LOL....Geezzzz.
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Nearly correct. As I recall it, about 95%+ of the people who stuffed raw asbestos between the hulls of the Victory ships AND smoked cigarettes were dead within 30 years, primarily of the same cause.
Asbestos is potentially harmful when it's airborne. The more friable it is (i.e. the less binder it's associated with), the more hazardous it is. It is basically a zero disposal hazard in a landfill. Asbestos fibres in drinking water etc. represent no significant hazard.
The types of asbestos that give mesothelioma are the ones with a fibre shaped like a small double-ended needle. That's the blue and the brown.
Mesothelioma typically takes years to develop from a fibre embedded in the lung. White asbestos causes a disease similar to silicosis -- it's not much more hazardous than any other kind of dust would be.
White was used in siding and similar flat or corrugated sheeting -- blue and brown in pipe lagging, brake linings, etc.
IanDG
Was the flooring sheet goods or tiles? Aren't the 9" tiles more likely to have asbestos than the 12"