Not protecting your lungs from things like that, over years, can overwhelm your body's immune system and ability to fight off DNA mutations. Always working with wood dust, stone dust, etc. He was a former smoker, but quit in the past. (And yet everyone is different.you're 11x more likely to die in a car crash than from that disease.)Ī friend of my dad's (from years ago) died of lung cancer last year. A short, sharp dose of amphiboles is enough to put a hurt on you in a few decades. One of the horrible things about amphiboles is that people who work a day or two unprotected and get a heavy dose of that stuff have gone 30-40 years and then gotten mesothelioma. Wet it properly for taking a sample if absolutely necessary. But all silica dust is worth keeping out of your lungs.Īs a side note, don't ever mess around with the white-wrapped pipe insulation type asbestos if you find it. Its like the two combine in some unholy alliance. But asbestosis is lung scarring from very high concentrations for long periods, and lung cancers from this require also being a smoker. Chrysotile IS connected to asbestosis and lung cancer. Amphiboles go in you and just.kind of.stay.there. (Sometimes Chrysotile asbestos in mines has been adulterated with amphiboles, but end-user products are a different situation.) Chrysotile has a very short bio-persistence, days in fact. While the law and OSHA classifies asbestos as one thing, Chrysotile is a very different mineral from the amphibole asbestos used in pipe insulation and other thing. You never know what is where in your home, it is not like it will jump out and bite you but if you are going to do work.spend a few bucks for tests.Īs a further note, Chrysotile asbestos (white asbestos) is the serpentine type, and is NOT the type connected to the rare disease mesothelioma (see every other mid-day cable TV lawyer ad). This is not a Big deal, but something to be aware of. The lab told me its rare they see it in that lathe layer. Keep it wetted down and HEPA vac the dust. Anything less than 1% is not legally and technically called "Asbestos Containing Material" BUT you should still use very good dust control practices when working with it. At that level they do not measure more accurately unless you do a point count ($80 test) but the lab guy (who answers ALL your questions, he's great) said there's no real difference between say 0.2 and 0.4%. The bottom drywall layer, though, tested positive for "trace" amounts of Chrysotile asbestos. But my lab results showed both plaster layers were clear. Mailed Monday, results Tuesday night!ĪCM, a local remediation outfit, says they usually see asbestos in the outer veneer layer. They had my results emailed to me by the end of the next day after I put them in the mail. $30 for the first sample, $20 per additional. Took samples of each layer, and sent to "Western Analytical Lab" out near Los Angeles. And the good ones turn it around in 1 day and not a week. You still need to pay the lab, you still need to pay the shipping! All labs have instructions and forms online, use a little Ziploc bag. You DO NOT need a "test kit" from a place like Home Depot. A "drywall" layer that is paper-covered gypsum board, a brown coat of plaster, then a 1/8" pure white veneer coating of plaster. 2 builders I spoke to, 30 years experience, it was news to them.Īfter cutting out 4 sections of wall, 16" wide each, with a sawzall (and actually generating very little dust due to very good vacuum/venting setup), I inexplicably started wondering what the composition of the wall material was as far as possible asbestos. Discussions online are unhelpful for definitive research. Its not advertised, even on EPA's asbestos website. Old drywall can contain asbestos fibers, as can old drywall joint compound. Old plaster walls can contain asbestos fibers. I wanted to share my experience over the past 2 weeks with working with plaster walls in my house, having now lived there 13 years and never thought of this before, yet still having done several small various projects.
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