Asbestos air ducts

IAMIKE

Member
This may be a touchy subject, but here goes. Our home was built in 1934, and has some asbestos wrap on the furnace ducts. This stuff needs to go, as we are planning a remodel. I have heard that a good way to do it is to encapsulate the duct and bag it with double plastic. Does anyone have an alternative method or is this the best way to do DIY? Thanks
 
The best thing to do is don't disturb the stuff.
If you have to mess with it, spray it with water
and keep it wet to avoid making the fibers
airborne.
 
As long as the asbestos is on the outside of the duct I wouldn't mess with it.
If you feel you must remove it you need to take a lot of precautions to do it safely. At a minimum you'll need a containment area.....don't allow the fibers to infiltrate other areas of the home!
You'll need to maintain negative air pressure in the containment area.
You'll need to spray a lock down solution on the asbestos. That will help to keep the fibers from getting airborne when you remove the duct.
Wear a Tyvek or similar throw away suit. Use a respirator (not a dust mask!).
Yes, encapsulate the duct with as little disturbance of the asbestos as possible. Then double bag it.

Chances are if you tackle this yourself you'll be creating a worse situation than just leaving it alone. My advice is to hire an asbestos abatement contractor. It won't be cheap, but what value do you put on your family's health?
 
Nobody ever developed asbestosis except for Canadian asbestos miners and Johns Manville asbestos insulation factory workers. Read about it. Uncountable numbers of coal miners have developed (and died from) black lung over the centuries, yet we don't treat coal as if it's plutonium. Asbestos is the current glamor poison.

By all means, call the EPA and turn yourself in. They want you to be safe no matter how little the risk or how much the cost.

Stan
 

X2 what Stan said. If you just pull the stuff out you are only in danger of dramatic EPA action and hysterical public reaction. You would not be in danger from the asbestos after one remodel.

The American public has lost it's sense so you will not want to talk about how you got it out or where you disposed of it. Disposal is another hysterical issue. Just bury it somewhere and stay silent, and enjoy pulling one over on the government.
 
My BIL spent a lifetime working in a power plant, from starting in the coal yard, to operating, ending up as plant manager. Every year during overhaul they would cut off asbestos insulation, grind it, wet it into a slurry, and reuse it after repairs were completed. literally move it with scoop shovels.

Who didn"t play with mica, asbestos, or mercury when they were young? A local school had a few drops spilled, and the magic number of $100,000 in cleanup costs appeared. A fear mongers delight!
 
I remember a junior high science teacher that had a baby food jar of mercury. We had all kinds of fun pouring it on the table top and separating it and pushing the small puddles together again to make one large puddle. :D

As far as the asbestos thing....... Do what you want, but I wouldn't be asking for advice on the interweb. :roll: ........ unless you were asking for contact info for a licensed abatement contractor.
 
Just mist it with water & keep it wet while working with it so it doesn't become airborne & you won't have any problems.
 
A lot of guys on here has worked on their own tractor and truck clutches and brakes. Probably used an air gun to blow to help clean things up.
Anybody suffering from mesothemiloma(sp). I am 66 and inhaled enough asbestos in my teens and up until they stopped using asbestos. When I have a disagreement with my wife, she claims I have dementia. But I tell her she has it worse. Must have been the asbestos
 
(quoted from post at 15:26:13 06/07/14) Nobody ever developed asbestosis except for Canadian asbestos miners and Johns Manville asbestos insulation factory workers. Read about it. Uncountable numbers of coal miners have developed (and died from) black lung over the centuries, yet we don't treat coal as if it's plutonium. Asbestos is the current glamor poison.

By all means, call the EPA and turn yourself in. They want you to be safe no matter how little the risk or how much the cost.

Stan
Just curious where you got that info?
I built a house for a guy that got asbestosis from doing asbestos abatement....and he took all the precautions.
I also know of someone that got it from brake dust back when they used asbestos in brake linings.

If I know two people that got it in my little corner of the world, certainly there are many more.

Last I checked, maybe 8 or 10 years ago the EPA didn't have any rules regarding removing asbestos in homes. Even if they did, they likely wouldn't apply to a person removing asbestos from their own home.
That doesn't mean someone should ignore safe work procedures.
 
If it were me and I could see the asbestos, I would paint it with something that would seal it and forget about it. Spray it, don't brush paint it, in order to minimize the disturbance.

Remember the Kent filter cigarette ads with the "micronite" filter? Yep, they had asbestos in the filters.
 
Encapsulate. Wear a respirator. Either wrap with duct tape or thick coat of paint. Giving any info to a contractor will open a new can of worms for later. When I took lead abatment the state has my photo as a responsible party who is liable if I am on a job with improper abatment and don't call the state. Police and garbage personnel are now trained to look for trash bags tied in a gooseneck .Transporting your waste could cost you huge fines if caught or found at the curb. Asbestos is the best insulation known to man. Paint it, just don't cut it or disturb it. If you are referring to round pipe duct tape it and forget about it.
 
Under a microscope asbestos looks like a tiny pile of fish hooks. You want a pile of fish hooks made of rock in your lungs go ahead and fly it all over your house. You sound like a cheap doctor who dumps his medical waste in the river or kids playground.
 
Short of a biopsy (or an autopsy), the normal way that asbestosis, or pleural mesothelioma, is discovered is through differential diagnosis---a background of known exposure in conjunction with ruling out other possibilities. The actor Steve McQueen was a heavy cigarette smoker until he came down with a persistent cough which turned out to be lung cancer. It was suggested that the condition was the result of the asbestos in the flame retardant clothing he had worn while filming a movie about car racing. The maker of the clothing was able to demonstrate that the clothing in question had never contained asbestos, but it sort of makes my point. A lifetime of heavy tobacco smoking and a short period of wearing clothing supposedly containing asbestos results in a diagnosis of asbestos related lung cancer. Likewise, I suggest that a person who "took all the precautions" in doing asbestos abatement would be diagnosed with asbestosis because, being involved with asbestos, no other diagnosis would even be considered. Think about it. The protective measures are uncomplicated and well proven, while asbestos is only hazardous, not magic. But by all means a person should be careful dealing with asbestos, or any hazardous substance. Because, remember, if you smoke thirty cigarettes a day for forty years, and once you removed some asbestos wrapped ductwork while wearing only a dust mask instead of a respirator, if you come down with lung cancer, it's going to be because of the asbestos.

Stan
 
I encounter it fairly often while remodelong in older homes. As said, just get it wet and remove it. I use a pump type garden sprayer. Then peel it off and throw it out in the trash.
Here in MN it's legal to throw small amounts of it in the trash.
I just did a kitchen a couple of months ago.
Home built in the early 70s. Lady was scared about asbestos in the linoleum on the floor.
I said just staple a new layer of 1/4" plywood over it and put down the new vinyl tile she had picked out.
Nope. Wont do. She had an abatement company come out to take a sample. Yep asbestos.
They had to hire the abatement company to take it out. Two specially trained Union laborers came in and put tape and plastic everywhere and then went in with NO MASKS and cut the plywood it was glued to out, wrapped it up and hauled it out. Took them about 4 hours.
$2000 later she was happy.
 
Stan , I see from a google search on McQueen it states that his racing suit was nomex and contained no asbestos. Although that may be true somewhere I read that McQueen stuffed extra asbestos sheeting under his suit during certain stunts. I can't find the source right now but I'll keep looking. It may have even been Easyriders magazine. Search about a company from NJ caled UNARCO [ United Asbestos and Rubber Company ] where every worker died in their early forties . The wives lasted a bit longer . Everyone from the junkyard next door also died becuase the fan from the factory was blowing out the side of the building into the junkyard. You may not be afraid of asbestos but what if I offered you a small almost tiny pill . Not even milligrams but a few micrograms . It is so tiny it cant hardly have any effect on you at all . It is called LSD . Woah ,there goes Stan running down the highway naked . How did that happen?
 
Stan check again some of us do have asbestosis from years of working around it in chemical plants and powerhouses I'm on 24 hr oxygen so tell me about it.
 
I spent 35 years working in powerplants. Up until last 20 years it was not harmfull . But after osha made us take classes and have tests talicaum depoistchings were different. It has taken 4 of my fellow workers lives and it is not a plesant death . When I retired they gave us test and thankfully I had no problem. I have a chest xray every 3 years as I have a spot on lung but unrelated. Only thing so far I agree is paint and seal if even tore the fibers will get in air and can stay for a long time.life is too precious
 
A insulators wife died early just from washing his clothes thank god we did our laundry at the plant
 
Steve McQueen did not die of lung cancer. He died of pleural mesothelioma. Almost always a asbestos/smoker related disease. And a awfull way to go I may add. The US EPA could not care less about what you do in your house reguarding asbestos. Residential units of 4 or less are exempt from the Asbestos regulations, that would be NESHAP, The National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Emissions. However your state, county or some regional district may have a different view. Of course the landfill may balk at taking hazardous waste and the Highway Patrol may have some strong opinions about the correct way to haul it down the highway. If I was doing it I would use visqueen (or glove bags) to contain the area, use HEPA machines( with delta P certification) able to exchance exchange the air 4 times a hour, wear a respirator with P100 filters with a protection factor of 10, that I am fit tested and qualified to wear, have my annual HAZMAT physical, wet the material with a cationic emulsifing surfacant, seal it in leaktight containors, have a serious way to decontaminate myself comming out of containmen and thought about how I was going to get rid of it before I started. They are your lungs though, not mine. Breath it if you want to.
 

I bought my second home in the mid seventies and there was asbestos insulation on the steam heat pipes. Asbestos was just starting to get publicity at the time, and I was not aware of any regs, but I could see that it would be a good idea to get rid of it so I studied up on procedures. I used a spray bottle with soap solution to thoroughly wet each piece before removal and bagged it. The soap is important to help the water penetrate.
 
I"m surprised nobody has brought up drywall mud. In
the late 70"s, different makers used to print
"asbestos free" on the bucket for a sales pitch. My
house was built in 62, so I sent a sample from an
outside corner to a testing lab(no affiliation with
any abatement companies)and it tested 5-10 percent.
That"s a lot (in a 5 gallon bucket!) Most people
think nothing of it, but I follow proper procedure
when changing out window"s/door"s/etc
 
If I remember right, there's 2 types of asbestos, and the hooked ones are the bad ones. The straight-fibered ones are harmless.
Typical government, ban it all, don't differentiate.
 
(quoted from post at 08:59:53 06/08/14) I"m surprised nobody has brought up drywall mud.


........... or ceiling tile

or floor tile

or plaster

or floor tile mastic

or ceiling tile mastic

or ....................?????????????????


You would be amazed at how many common building materials had asbestos in it back in the day.
 
Saying pleural mesothelioma is not lung cancer is like saying a myocardial infarction is not a heart attack. If a cancer that attacks the lining of the lungs can't be called lung cancer then I think communication here has broken down entirely. But have it your way. This has been one of the most nit-picky, hysterical, and sanctimonious discussions on Tool Talk in a long time, and you managed to hit a triple.

Stan
 
LSD never made me act like that, and I see no reason to think it would now. Besides, the effective dose would have to be zero micrograms for the offer of a pill to cause an adverse reaction. I'd as soon put a gun to my head and pull the trigger just because someone suggested it as put a pill in my mouth just because someone offered it.

Am I taking all this $hit because I specified asbestos miners and asbestos insulation factory workers as the people who got asbestosis? I wouldn't have expected that it would take rocket scientists to deduce that what I was talking about was that the statistically verifiable asbestos exposure risk is largely limited to people in occupations where exposure is high and long term. Certainly, people not exposed to a lot of asbestos, or for a long time, also come down with pleural mesolithioma. Given that there are almost a third of a billion of us in this country now, anything that CAN happen is going to happen numerically a lot. And I never suggested that anyone be careless about dealing with asbestos. Following the recommended safety procedures when handling asbestos ought to be entirely adequate to prevent dangerous exposure. There's really no need to get hysterical about it.

As far as my contention that any known exposure to asbestos, no matter how small, will virtually guarantee that a later diagnosis of lung cancer will be labeled asbestosis, I'd like to call attention to a parallel hysterical reaction. The number of brown recluse spider bites that show up at emergency rooms, and are treated as such, is highest in parts of the country that have no brown recluse spiders. In parts of the country where brown recluse bites actually occur, ER personnel are often familiar with the real thing, and so are able to recognize the many other things that people think are spider bites that actually aren't.

Stan
 
The pleural is a soft fiberious tissue that surrounds the lungs. Pleural Mesothelioma is different than lung cancer, any type of malignant tumor that originates in the lungs.
 

I've had a couple classes on asbestos awareness.
One asbestos fiber is shapped like a double ended torpedo. The mucous drops in your throat are smaller in diameter that the length of an asbestos fiber.

Changes of having a health problem from asbestos, 1 being largest to 4 being least.

1- Smoker and asbestos worker
2- Smoker non asbestos worker
3- Non smoker and asbestos worker
4- Non smoker non asbestos worker

If a partical of asbestos is dropped from 8 feet in a room with NO air movement, it will take 24 hours for it to reach the floor. My memory is fadding, maybe it is 48 hours.
 
This subect is pretty beat to death. My fathers friend was a salesman for an asbestos company in Canada . When we were kids he gave us asbestos paperweights . They were green ,brown , and red layers to show you that you could order the asbestos in various colors. Later the same guy went into the auto salvage business . Molson beer came along and wanted to buy the land his yard was on . After that he was a millionaire. He retired and got lung cancer. He was only in and out of the asbestos plant. As bI remember him as a kid he did smoke [ as did everyone back then]. As an electrician I will encounter it on roof jobs. [small fibers sticking up from the tar. Pipe insulation [ gets disturbed by people hitting it with other pipes being installed]. Drill through asbestos blocks under heaters in older buildings.] I try top know when to ID it and in some buildings I can actually smell it in the air . {Boilerooms]]. Whatever I have breathed in fine for me . But the one thing I don't want to do is get it on my clothes and expose my family to it. If you want to wet it down and rip it out without air sampling you can't tell how good and thorough you were. I still say short of paying an abatement contractor alot of money just duct tape over it with a little disturbance as possible.. I know I gots me lots of typos cause I'm going to buy new glasses now. I just hope I am not bitten by a brown asbestos coated LSD influnced spider on the way. Then I will pick up my new glass beads that I got ripped off on the price. So the whole point IS don't breath any asbestos.
 
Here in Vermont where the earth shows the open
large abandonned spoils. A mine on the superfund
list,

the members of the town located
say it's not the africanized variety
so it's OK now
 
I agree with most replies, and am in [b:957972137f]total agreement [/b:957972137f]with all safety measures.
Don't get me wrong with what I am saying--A few years ago, I had asbestos shingles on my home and planned to have it bricked over. I contacted a governmental agency to seek advise about what to do.
These people told me to leave the shingles attached because disposing of them would be dangerous and costly.
Being an Auto mechanic, I asked them why I could still buy brake pads/shoes and clutches that contained asbestos!
They could not answer my question???
This was at a time when asbestos danger was being addressed aggressively and since this time, I am not sure if asbestos free Pads/Shoes/ Clutches can still be purchased.
At the time, I was more concerned with asbestos ON THE ROAD!!
 
Yes the term they use is boyancy. It is a boyant material. Meaning any you miss with a wetdown with stay flying around in your home for quite some time.
 
I agree with all that recommended to leave the dang stuff alone, if possible. I was exposed to asbestos while in the service. We used it in rope like links as a fire proof grommet. It was attached to the outer edge of the stainless steel fire wall or shield that went around the the aft end of a radial engine. We had to remove and replace it when it became compressed from expanding and contracting with the fire shield. Also, I would guess that all the wiring and ducts on the older aircraft were protected by the stuff too. We also stripped, buffed and polished the asbestos tile flooring in our barracks, as did anyone that pulled orderly duty in the service back then. I reckon if Agent Orange don't get me, the asbestos will. Speaking of A/O, if you ever played or walked along side the railroad tracks back in the 50's or 60's. you were exposed to the same compounds that made up Agent Orange, along with the dust from the trains brakes . We walked to school back then and the Seaboard Coastline rail bed was the shortest route to school. The maintenance pony engine and car would pass by spraying and by the next day any foliage near the track would be all brown and crunchy. Sorry for going OT.
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top