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September 24, 2009
Asbestos That's Not a Ripoff?
Can anyone recommend an honest and fairly priced company to do asbestos removal? I've tried calling a few from old postings on this site but they appear to no longer be in business.
We have a small job: Remove fewer than 5 inches of asbestos from pipes in basement, vacuum dirt floor, and simply throw away a small amount of linoleum that is not glued to the floor.
Comments
mopar...wet it down with a hose and remove it yourself. It's not that big of a deal and as long as you're not raising dust there's no danger. Throw it all in th rubbish on friday remodeling rubbbish day.
Posted by: daveinbedstuy at September 24, 2009 4:40 PM
Can't. Can't get it off the pipes. But we could just leave it. There's hardly any.
The floor is the real problem because at one point someone incorrectly removed a lot of asbestos insulation (I think) and it's all over and we kick it up and track it all over the place whenever we go down there.
Is vacuuming the dirt floor with a HEPA vacuum just like regular vacuuming? I'm worried I won't do it right.
Thank you!
Posted by: mopar at September 24, 2009 4:54 PM
Buy the cheapest smallest wet/dry Rigid shop vac, install the optional HEPA filter, dampen the entire floor and bag the entire vacuum and throw it away.
Posted by: modsquad at September 24, 2009 4:59 PM
Modsquad, could you elaborate? How do I dampen the whole floor? Why do I need to throw away the whole vacuum? Have you done this?
Also, the off the shelf masks don't fit at all. I should order a custom one but it takes time.
Posted by: mopar at September 24, 2009 7:01 PM
why not just do the legal thing instead of trying to run a scam?.. if you get caught illegally dumping asbestos you will be liable for 10s of thousands of dollars in fines?.. is it worth not paying the standard 2-3 grand abatement fee? not to mention poising yourself and your family because you are so greedy
Posted by: eman1234 at September 24, 2009 9:20 PM
you know asbestos causes mesothelioma... and mesothelioma kills people. why would you play with peoples lives!!
Posted by: zberlin at September 24, 2009 10:46 PM
Dampening the floor and any surface will eliminate the dust factor. Why bother trying to save a $50 vac full of asbestos. Better to double or triple bag it and send it to a landfill.
Posted by: modsquad at September 24, 2009 11:41 PM
Except it's not about a $50 shopvac. It's about the real live sanitation workers handling your triple bag, and the next guy's triple bag, and all the other toxic material people bury in their trash. The real live workers who maintain the trucks and work in the garages that house them. Worth protecting yourself but not the others around you...is that such a tough call?
Posted by: vinca at September 25, 2009 12:04 AM
mesothelioma
# Approximately 2,000 to 3,000 new cases are reported each year in the U.S.
# Approximately 80 percent of diagnosed cases can be directly linked to a job where asbestos was present.
That means that shipyard workers, insulators, construction workers, welders, plumbers, electricians, steamfitters, pipefitters, boilermakers, railroad workers, chemical plant workers, power plant workers, miners and auto mechanics over the age of 65 will make up 2400 of those patients. 600 people who have had no direct exposure will make up the remaining victims.
http://www.asbestos.com/mesothelioma/statistics.php
ON the other hand: Lightning injures about 1000 people in the U.S. each year.
http://www.thecomputerwizard.biz/lightning.htm
Modern Life is inherently dangerous.
Posted by: modsquad at September 25, 2009 12:06 AM
You originally asked for a reputable remover. I have used Mendy of Asbestway on Washinton Ave. Don't know if it will help but you can say Bruce recommended him.
Posted by: brucef at September 25, 2009 12:19 AM
Mopar, may as well write your will because according to some people you're already dead, you just don't know it.
I assume the insulation you have is asbestos cement, if you're having trouble getting it off. Probably on an elbow, right? You CAN get it off. You will need to spray it with water and a dilute solution of dishwasing soap. Several times. The soap helps it penetrate. You then hit it with a hammer and chisel. As you open a gap, keep spraying. Often you can break it into two halves and pull it off. If there's anything left, you go after it with a wire brush or scraper.
Hell, 5"? I'd do it for a bottle of wine, lol.
Alternately, you could simply encapsulate it. You could wrap it around with rubberized insulating tape and leave it alone. There's nothing wrong with that either.
More problematic is the dirt floor. Have you had the dirt tested or are you merely theorizing here? Assuming it is freaking you out, you would wet it and remove the top layer of dirt, let's say 1/4", with a shovel.
Here also encapsulation may be a better choice. You could add a cheap floor covering. You could add another inch of dirt. You could cover with plastic sheeting and add dirt.
Or you could not worry about it. Any asbestos fibers that are contaminated with dirt will be heavier than air and will not float around.
There are trace amounts of asbestos everywhere. Asbestos is a natural material that outcrops the earth in any number of places. If you don't smoke you have considerably less risk, and in any case the risk is very low for a single abatement especially if you wear the proper mask. I think I sent you a link a while ago to mcmaster.com and to the right masks. Standard dirt and dust masks are not rated for asbestos.
eman, I know you do boilers and so are concerned, but you should examine the asbestos removal industry before calling homeowners greedy. Asbestos lawyers have become some of the richest people in the country. Often in cahoots with shady medical people like this one.
http://www.legalnewsline.com/news/219257-harron-others-named-in-miss.-suit-over-asbestos-scheme
600,000 people who were told that they were ill, when they weren't.
Posted by: denton at September 25, 2009 7:38 AM
PS: Mopar, you can simply throw the linoleum out. Whether or not it has asbestos in it, the asbestos is not considered 'friable'. Bag it up and get rid of it, don't get ripped off by someone who will tell you it hazardous waste. Not so.
Posted by: denton at September 25, 2009 7:41 AM
Mopar - I had a really terrific & savvy guy help me a few years ago. Phone Joe Bova - 718 234 7437 or try his pager - 917 457 2291. He has a cell but prefers the pager when he's on site somewhere. 917 697 1853.
Posted by: Arkady at September 25, 2009 8:42 AM
BTW, I got P100 filters for the standard M3 6000 face mask. The package states, that it protects from Asbestos, Uramium and Plutonuim
Posted by: bobjohn at September 25, 2009 9:43 AM
zberlin: what fear-mongering. Cleaning up small amounts of asbestos yourself will cause no harm.
But then look at the EPA cleanup suggestions for broken CFL's, which sound like you're about to die of mercury poisoning. It's a matter of proportion
Posted by: cmu at September 25, 2009 10:13 AM
Whenever someone starts talking about asbestos I'm reminded of 1993 when I was in high school here in NYC and the Mayor Dinkins/Board of Ed delayed the start of the school year until almost October to do "emergency" asbestos abatement in public schools across all 5 boros. They still weren't able to get everything abated and cleaned up in time at my school, and we returned to school in late Sept with plastic tarps taped over open holes in the walls, dust everywhere, exposed pipes, etc. Somehow the asbestos present for 50+ years, that millions of students and teachers were exposed to, became an emergency all of a sudden.
Mesothelioma is a form of lung cancer caused by years and years of exposure to airborne asbestos. There is an entire industry of lawyers (ambulance chasers) dedicated to asbestos litigation who have made a ton of money because of the identifiable correlation between asbestos and lung cancer. However, the most authoritative study of health effects of asbestos studied 100,000 men, of whom 17,800 all worked in the asbestos industry ("heavy occupational asbestos exposure"). It compared smoking cigarettes to asbestos exposure and found that cigarette smokers who didn't work in the asbestos industry were more than twice as likely to die from lung cancer as non-smokers who worked in the asbestos industry. In the study we are talking about people exposed to asbestos on a daily basis, as a career, before the gov't realized it was a dangerous fiber; not people who were incidentally exposed to it while doing work in their house. Yes, both smokers and asbestos workers faced a much higher risk of lung cancer than the control group (and considerably higher if they were exposed to both).
Point being, I personally would not be afraid of removing a 5" segment myself as long as I was wearing a mask, keeping it wet and bagging it carefully. Just as I would not be afraid of getting lung cancer if I smoked a single cigarette.
Posted by: setancre at September 25, 2009 12:55 PM
>Just as I would not be afraid of getting lung cancer if I smoked a single cigarette
Or even a few. But it seems that there are plenty of people who are so shit-scared of everything that they make life expensive and painful for the rest of us.
Posted by: cmu at September 25, 2009 1:08 PM
BTW, I got P100 filters for the standard M3 6000 face mask. The package states, that it protects from Asbestos, Uramium and Plutonuim
Posted by: bobjohn at September 25, 2009 9:43 AM
I was taught to hide under my desk in the event of a nuclear bomb.
Posted by: daveinbedstuy at September 25, 2009 3:57 PM
the big hoopla with asbestos is that it cannot be broken down and it is impervious. When it goes into the lungs certain particles contaminate the lining of the lungs. After 20 + years cancer consumes the victim. Even the ancients were aware of its harmful effects. So don't tell me that only smokers suffer from Mesothelioma.
Posted by: zberlin at September 25, 2009 8:01 PM
zberlin, you're just contaminating the discussion, seriously. Smokers DO NOT contract mesothelioma.
I've been breathing asbestos for thirty years and am not consumed.
Do some research, please.
Posted by: denton at September 25, 2009 10:51 PM
denton: you're entirely wrong. Asbestos exposure is harmful to everyone. Stop acting like an expert when you're not. Smoking in addition to asbestos increases your chances of getting sick.
Furthermore, just because smoking increases your chances of a stroke doesn't mean you need to smoke to get stroke :)
Posted by: zberlin at September 26, 2009 1:25 PM
zberlin, it so happens that I am an expert. Your posts show that your information comes from a magazine article or two.
Posted by: denton at September 27, 2009 7:25 AM
Thank you everybody for the phone numbers. I tried Joe Bova before but could not reach him, happy to have more numbers for him and the other guy.
I can't do the work myself for other reasons but not because I am worried I will contract mesothelioma.
Posted by: mopar at September 27, 2009 10:47 AM
denton: enlighten me. What makes you an expert on asbestos? And if you are one, why on earth would you defend such a ludicrous claim that the tobacco is really at the root of mesothelioma. I'm sure Owens Corning et al would have loved your argument and could have avoided over $10 billion in settlements.
what about the era pre-tobacco? People died from asbestosis, the ancient romans and greeks knew this.
I'm really sorry to hear about your 30 year consumption of asbestos. My father died of mesothelioma and the pain was excruciating.
Posted by: zberlin at September 27, 2009 12:41 PM
Denton's right. Asbestos is not kryptonite. Anyone who works in ceramics, a foundry, some science labs or about a million other industrial/artisanal situations where you need a truly excellent insulator still comes across asbestos on a regular basis, and the chances are excellent that it's not going to kill them.
Denton's characterization of asbestos reads pretty much verbatim like any foundry/ceramics/welding textbook sidebar about asbestos risk. It's simply something you need to get regularly exposed to, like cigarettes, it needs to be friable in order to harm you, and it is still everywhere (in an industrial setting).
It's important to recognize its presence and its risks, wear a P100 mask that fits your face and keep it wet if you're going to render it friable and isolate everything (ie, triple bag it and toss your clothes). That's what you pay an "expert" to do.
Zberlin, it's good to be safe but you are speaking past your area of expertise here.
Posted by: vanburenproud at September 27, 2009 4:18 PM
"denton: enlighten me. What makes you an expert on asbestos? And if you are one, why on earth would you defend such a ludicrous claim that the tobacco is really at the root of mesothelioma."
There's no point in me going into detail... nevertheless pls read my posts. In no case did I state that tobacco is at the root of mesothelioma. In fact @ 10:51 I specifically denied it! I stated that the large majority of people who have died of asbestos-related disease have been smokers. Smoking weakens the lungs in some way that makes asbestos diseases more likely IF you are in an industry that exposes you to asbestos on a regular basis. Pls see the following which states that smoking increases the risk of asbestos-related diseases by 87 times:
http://www.kazanlaw.com/faqs/diseases/smoking.cfm
As to the legalities, if you will do your research you will discover that indeed cigarette companies were sued going back to the 1930s. They have successfully maintained that there is no _direct_ proof that any plaintiff has been injured by smoking not asbestos. And they have been very good at it and often claimed precedent. Remember the tobacco companies have much deeper pockets even than Grace, JM, and Owens Corning. Here's a link for you.
http://www.mesotheliomalegalrights.com/asbestos-lawsuit-tobacco.htm
Posted by: denton at September 27, 2009 8:49 PM
I have no problem agreeing that smoking greatly increases the chances of mesothelioma. However you need asbestos to get it. Prolonged exposure to asbestos has dire consequences even without tobacco. Nonetheless, we are all entitled to our opinions :)
cheers
Posted by: zberlin at October 12, 2009 6:33 PM
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