Asbestos questions

[Helevitia]

I'm getting ready to redo a bedroom and I want to scrape the popcorn crap off the ceiling. Unfortunately, my house was built in 1971 and probably has an asbestos ceiling.

How dangerous is this for me to do my self? I've been reading all about it on the web, but I was just wondering your personal experience. It sounds pretty dangerous though.

[SitFlyer]

Asbestos bad. Very expensive to have removed professionally.
If you wear goggles, Tyvek coveralls and a dust mask you'll be fine. Good you picked winter to do this project.
You also want to do everything possible to minimize the dust spreading elsewhere and contaminating your suroundings.
Like most all, my ceiling was painted and the water trick didn't help much.

[RedRed]

Asbestos = v bad.

Kills ye 30 years later.

If possible, dont touch it (its only dangerous when broken up).

Suggest that it might be easier/safer/cheaper to replaster it (the ceiling) - rather than remove it at all.

If memory serves me right, asbestos fibr/cement tiles are safe enough left in situ - its the blue you have to be really careful about.

dont break them up unless you really, really have to.

if you do, have a negative pressure environment. you can do this cheaply by sealing the roofspace with plastic (if at all possible), taping up the doors (and floor!) and placing a big ducted fan in the window. Seal the rest. If you have one, wear a positive pressure airmask. You can get them from bodyshop suppliers who sell 2 pack paint (it gives off cyanide). You will need a small compressor too (but you can hire these really cheaply).

I have nursed the effects of asbesos poisoning (used to be a nurse) and it is something I never want to experience close up. (it was commonly used in shipbuilding (and we used to have the biggest shipbuilding facilities in Europe, here in Belfast))

[Dilitante1]

i would hit a hardware store and find a asbestos test kit before you get worried

[Jon P. Inghram]

If it is asbestos I'd think it'd be easiest just to put a false ceiling right next to it, maybe with some insulation to justify the added effort.

[KRSESQ]

Links:
removal
and here
and here.

The important thing is to avoid breathing dust generated by the removal of asbestos-bearing materials. That includes dust that accumulates on your clothing during the removal process.

Generally I don't worry about it. Who wants to live forever?

Kevin

[KvHagedorn]

When you think about the mask, just don't even consider those little cup things that cover your nose and mouth. Those are no more effective than "duck and cover" would be with a thermonuclear blast going off overhead. You need something that looks like a gas mask, with a pair of screw on filters to breathe through. Don't forget the integrated eye protection, and even ears and hair should be covered. You should look like Paulie in his bunny suit while you're doing this. RedRed sounds like he has the right idea on this one, and don't think professional removal is expensive for no reason. You don't need anymore health problems, and you don't want the dust to spread into the house from shoes or airborne on a breeze, because your family doesn't need those problems either, particularly the soon to be one.

[Dr Mordrid]

If it is asbestos I'd think it'd be easiest just to put a false ceiling right next to it, maybe with some insulation to justify the added effort.

I too think this is the best plan. I'd put up some furring strips w/a fresh coat of latex paint between them and the ceiling then fasten new drywall to them. Mud & tape the seams and leave it at that.

Removing it yourself is dangerous and in many, if not all, locales is illegal.

Paying for someone else to do it is extremely expensive and also requires a scene like that in Elliot's house during the last 1/4 of E.T.: a plastic wrapped house with hazmat suits all over the place.

Dr. Mordrid

[Helevitia]

Well, after reading all of your comments and reading the links that KRSESQ posted, I decided that I am going to get it tested. If it is positive, I'm just going to leave it. I can get it done for $25 with a 5 day turn around.

Some of the sites I read say that asbestos can be in the ceiling as late as 1986 even though it was banned in 1978, crazy.

Thanks for all of your input.

[Helevitia]

i would hit a hardware store and find a asbestos test kit before you get worried

From everything I've read, you have to get it done professionally. I checked Lowe's tonight, they didn't have any.

[Brian Ellis]

To go off at a tangent, there is asbestos and asbestos. In fact, there are about 10 types, only 2 of which are dangerous. It depends on the chemical composition and size of the fibres. Unfortunately, give a dog a bad name..., meaning that the non-dangerous varieties are hit as badly as the bad 'uns.

There were asbestos mines at Amiandos on this island (they gave the French the word amiante for asbestos). I saw them working in the 1950s with everything covered by a pall of dust. There is no record of health problems amongst the workers, who wore no protection, and many spent 40+ years in the mines (in reality quarries). Why? Because the fibres are typically 3-6 mm long and are relatively coarse, so do not enter into respiratory system. I've got a lump of rock with an asbestos seam in my house. I also have a couple of photos I took in 52 of the mines. The mines are now closed, because the market has collapsed. All that remains is a lunar landscape of several km² where they were, with desperate efforts being made to eliminate the eyesore by bulldozing the land into terraces, importing topsoil and planting pine trees. This has been going on for about 20 years and is still only half completed (gives you an idea of the vast importance of the industry, when it existed).

[Umfriend]

To take this even further OT ( ), it is amazing how the dangerous types have been allowed to be used while, for instance, no US insurance company insured asbestos workers as off somewhere around the 10s or 20s of the previous century. Had the governements acted then we would both have prevented many premature deaths and agonsing disease case and we might have benefitted from the great qualities asbestos does have when treated and used appropriately.