It's a scary word, isn't it? For those of you that know what it is, you may have shuddered a bit when you read it.
For those of you that don't, there's plenty of information here. The cliff notes version is that asbestos is a mineral that causes serious complications - primarily with one's respiratory system - from exposure.
When it finally came time to get rid of the upstairs kitchen (as covered in Throwing a kitchen off a balcony...), we found that there was some, uh, interesting looking tile underneath the cabinets.
It was suggested to me that I get that lovely looking tile tested for asbestos so I did.
Turns out, you can't really hire someone to pull samples and test for asbestos around here - you get to pull the samples yourself. Fortunately, you can test for asbestos via the county lab and they give instructions for how to pull potentially contaminated materials on their website. (Hint: lots of water and protection for you.)
Interestingly and fortunately, the tile itself came back as positive for asbestos (fortunately confined to only the former kitchen turned workshop turned master bedroom) but the tar paper under it came back negative.
Once you find asbestos, you have two options:
1. Contain it. Pretty much, leave it alone. Asbestos materials are dangerous when the fibers get into the air.
2. Abate it. This is a regulated process where a professional comes into your home and gets rid of it under really strict bio-hazard guidelines.
If you're thinking I should have chosen option 1 and found myself a nice looking floating floor, well, you might be right but of course that's not what I chose. I'm going for original and that ain't it!
As soon as I got back the results, I made a call to my local abatement company (feel free to jump back to the Saga of the Wood Paneled shower - links are on the right side of this page - for more about their work getting mold out - ew) and took their first available appointment.
First up was pulling off all of the cork floating floor that had been laid over the carpet.
Wait. What? Carpet?
Oh, yes. What I couldn't see under the cabinets was 1970s carpet in all its glory:
Naturally, that carpet was glued down so that was part of the asbestos remediation process. This is probably a good thing since the glue holding it down could have been asbestos and it all needed to go anyway.
Jason got right to work and we went from the ugliest carpet around - covering about 200 square feet of asbestos - to this:
We don't really know what all was under there - it's not like I can take photos while it's locked down in a negative pressure area. But later in the day, we had some beautiful floors - and no asbestos!
Trust me on this one; those are beautiful! You'll just have to keep watching to see just how beautiful they can become.
It was suggested to me that I get that lovely looking tile tested for asbestos so I did.
Turns out, you can't really hire someone to pull samples and test for asbestos around here - you get to pull the samples yourself. Fortunately, you can test for asbestos via the county lab and they give instructions for how to pull potentially contaminated materials on their website. (Hint: lots of water and protection for you.)
Interestingly and fortunately, the tile itself came back as positive for asbestos (fortunately confined to only the former kitchen turned workshop turned master bedroom) but the tar paper under it came back negative.
Once you find asbestos, you have two options:
1. Contain it. Pretty much, leave it alone. Asbestos materials are dangerous when the fibers get into the air.
2. Abate it. This is a regulated process where a professional comes into your home and gets rid of it under really strict bio-hazard guidelines.
If you're thinking I should have chosen option 1 and found myself a nice looking floating floor, well, you might be right but of course that's not what I chose. I'm going for original and that ain't it!
As soon as I got back the results, I made a call to my local abatement company (feel free to jump back to the Saga of the Wood Paneled shower - links are on the right side of this page - for more about their work getting mold out - ew) and took their first available appointment.
First up was pulling off all of the cork floating floor that had been laid over the carpet.
Wait. What? Carpet?
Oh, yes. What I couldn't see under the cabinets was 1970s carpet in all its glory:
Naturally, that carpet was glued down so that was part of the asbestos remediation process. This is probably a good thing since the glue holding it down could have been asbestos and it all needed to go anyway.
Jason got right to work and we went from the ugliest carpet around - covering about 200 square feet of asbestos - to this:
We don't really know what all was under there - it's not like I can take photos while it's locked down in a negative pressure area. But later in the day, we had some beautiful floors - and no asbestos!
Trust me on this one; those are beautiful! You'll just have to keep watching to see just how beautiful they can become.
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