Asbestos Exposure Risk

6 years ago

Hi there,

We are getting our house renovated at the moment and living in a different property. We visited the house the other week while they were doing some stripout and demolition, they had lifted the flooring to expose a black adhesive and at the time were pulling down the ceiling, which was crashing into the floor and causing lots of dust. We were in there for about 5 minutes while this was happening. We've since learnt that the black adhesive contains asbestos, which they are planning to have removed but we are concerned about what we may have breathed in while we were visiting? The dust was quite thick! Assuming it was mostly the ceiling dust but would this have knocked up some of the asbestos fibres from the floor?

Any advice on this would be really appreciated!

Flooring

Asbestos

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Comments (4)

millworkman
6 years ago
Asbestos exposure enough to make anyone sick has typically been years. I would not even have the slightest worry about that minimal exposure.
Seabornman
6 years ago
The asbestos in mastic is fairly well captured in the asphaltic medium, making it very difficult to release into the air. Unless they sanded it, I don't think you have any worries.
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James Thomas
Original Author
6 years ago
Thank you both! I was starting to worry!
SJ McCarthy
6 years ago
Your personal exposure will be close to nil...but I worry about the workers in the home. They are exposed to asbestos day in and day out by homeowners who do not know if they have asbestos. It isn't until later on (like the ceiling laying on the floor) that asbestos is discovered.

Asbestos can be found in over 150 different building materials. The favourite place is the ceiling and in the insulation. Asbestos is a fire retardant which made it AWESOME as a fire break between levels.

The mastic doesn't concern me (for the workers) but the ceilings, the drywall, the insulation, concerns me. And not for the homeowner but the workers who are non-unionized and often marginalized people.

Please have the ceiling dust tested as well. You would be surprised what is hiding in a home built before the LATE 1980's.

As an aside, what are the plans for proper remediation?