Asbestos in ceiling, what to do??
My roomate took small asbestos ceiling sample in his room, was scraping 20 min because it was harder, like a paint, didnt see any white dust, but when i rubbed the ceiling before i had white powder on my finger.Â
 Is there lot of asbestos now? Is it safe to go there? (it has bed, carpet… where it could land) What could I do to make sure it is asbestos free as much as possible? Can I vacuum the carpet there?
 Should he buy proper mask and special clothes while painting the small hole? Should he wet it before painting?
Also clothes and stuff were rubbing against this asbestos ceiling since its inside big closet. How to best safely clean the stuff? Do I need to hire asbestos cleaning company?
Also which mask and vacuum is good for asbestos?Any advice appreciated!
bryan.lebaron
in General Discussion 4 years and 5 months ago
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restorationcontractor | 4 years and 5 months ago
Regardless of whether this is an actual safety issue or not I would have an asbestos company come in and take a look. At least this way you will have peace of mind, and if they do need to remediate its a small job that shouldn’t be very expensive anyway.
Under no circumstances have a regular cleaning company come in and vacuum you will be spreading any fibers throughout the air and making the situation much worse.
As it’s a small area that you said was chalky as the dust came off on your finger a little bit of paint or primer will encapsulate the fibers.
There are also encapsulant paints that are made for this, like this one;
https://www.fiberlock.com/product/abc-asbestos-binding-compound/
bryan.lebaron | 4 years and 5 months ago
Thanks a lot everyone! @ restorationcontractor there was no visible dust when he did the sample, i just read asbestos is invisible so was wondering how much notvisible dust could be there after a not profesionaly taken sample. Also there is not lots of dust on the clothes in the closet i think, there might be some small amount of white color powder( i am worried to touch it and check how much), what could be just maybe the paint from the ceiling? I a am hoping…but again I am not sure how many fibers can painted asbestos after rubbing loose or if its all sealed in and I can even touch it without worry. Maybe I could just take a tape and go through the stuff in closet and send it to lab to see if there are fibers? So pretty much I do not want to go crazy and hire for thousands company if I can just maybe do it alone withouth any hazarad. Maybe the amount of asbest is super small and even if cleaning company will come they might bring on their vacuums and stuff more asbestos then I had before.? Of course its hard to say and noone really will know the answer, I was just wondering if someone had this problem or is trained asbestos remover and might know. Its very hard bc most ppl will say do not worry about it but then few will say its super dangerous do not touch it, so I am just hoping from all the answers I will at the end be able to come to the best decision for my situation. Thanks a lot !
restorationcontractor | 4 years and 5 months ago
What @Stevecym said if it’s just a little sample wet the area down and waterbase primer/paint the spot.
If your roommate got dust all over everything that’s different. I would have a professional come in and remove everything. You can’t really wash asbestos out of clothing and if you tried you would then potentially contaminate the washing machine and subsequent loads of laundry.
Early on when the dangers of asbestos were just being discovered family members who had asbestosis were found to have gotten it from the contaminated clothing that the family member who worked with asbestos brought home on their clothes.
I wouldn’t worry too much asbestosis is usually caused by repeated long term exposure.
@Urbandud it is absolutely not rare for plaster or backer to contain asbestos, especially in pre and post WW2 buildings. That’s why renovation projects in NYC require an asbestos inspection and sampling/testing by a certified inspector in order to file an ACP-5 form with DOB. You cannot get a permit without it.
Then again judging by your comments here you probably don’ t pull permits because you think they are unnecessary and are a waste of money. Stop trying to spread disinformation. If you have nothing to say just don’t post.
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
what op is saying makes sense. the textured ceiling contains asbestos. textured ceilings became popular late, the 1950’s and they were still using asbestos then. maybe they put it in for strength or maybe for fire proofing?
OP, while i do not think you need a cleaning company for a little dust from a sample, you cannot assume anything about this ceiling going forward. you should err on the side of caution and have someone look at it, the condition, and explain what can be done to it and what should be done. especially if children will be in the space.
assume nothing.
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
If i read this correctly, they scraped a sample. No more. If the scraped the ceiling, they need a cleaning company.
People pull samples all over the city all the time, and they do not call cleaning companies in.
bryan.lebaron | 4 years and 5 months ago
@cate its one ceiling, the closet is big mirror sliding doors so if u open there is still the same ceiling as the rest of the room. So first they did the whole ceiling then they aded closets to the corners. Kind of like a walk in closet but smaller.
cate | 4 years and 5 months ago
Still very confusing. Two ceilings, and both ceilings definitely tested positive for asbestos? Yes, scraping asbestos will release fibers into the air. This is not something a regular cleaning company can handle. Only a certified asbestos contractor/remediation company (not the same as an inspector) can clean this up without causing further danger to you and others in the building and beyond. Be sure to check their NYC license and certification and make sure it is valid before you hire them. Here is some good information from the state of Minnesota: https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/asbestos/docs/asbbooklet.pdf
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
In a reply above, i tell how an asbestos insulation block crumbled and became air borne – in my face when i was on a ladder. All i did was wipe the asbestos up off the floor and counter surface where this happen and that night i washed my clothes as i normally would. I did not have a child then so did not think about what was on my clothes. Also, when this happen, there were licensed professionals standing there and even though they knew what happen was wrong, they did not seem bothered. I will assume they are healthy or if they have since died it was from slipping on a banana peel or driving while intoxicated or plain old age.
I can not tell you what to do, not on this board. Also, since this really is not my field. If you called me and asked i would not telll you.
Ok, i can tell you this, i have about 18″ of asbestos containing pipe insulation right beneath where i am sitting as i write this. Probably does not classify as an asbestos job. If i went down there now and put a mask on and removed it, i would wash my clothes like i do any other day. I wou ld keep my son away though, from it and my clothing.
Some people will think what i said above is foolish.
I will not speak to risks with a textured ceiling and encapsulation as i do not know. DO NOT assume the paint previous owner used was made for this purpose: either you know or do not know. I tell employees this all the time: know or dont know – no “i think” or “i thought” – it might be ok to assume with our health as adults, but what happens if a child stays in that space for 6 months or a year or more?
bryan.lebaron | 4 years and 5 months ago
Thank you so much for every reply!! So this is popcorn/textured ceiling what tested positive for asbestos. Yes he was scraping sample of new ceiling because if it would come negative we knew we can use our closet withouth worry and dont have to be worried to touch the ceiling in future. The ceiling was painted looks like so I think thats a way of encapsulating from whatever i read online? The ceiling is in a great state. So I do not want to remove it (i do not have money for it), all I want to know is if someone who would have some knowledge about asbestos would know if I have to worry about fibres in air after sample was taken and if I can keep the stuff from closet what were touching the ceiling or throw them out or how to clean it or have to call some cleaning company? I do not think there is visible white powder all over things (since its painted) but i know asbestos is invisible so dont know how much there could be onthose clothes and in the room after the sample.
cate | 4 years and 5 months ago
OP, old houses contain asbestos and lead. Their presence does not relieve you of the obligation under the law to pay your rent and not to damage a building. Asbestos inspection and remediation should be done by professionals hired by the building owner. If a lab test has in fact definitely revealed the presence of asbestos, and your roommate owns the unit, then my advice would be to call in professionals.
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
@urbaddad: everybody on this board knows that asbestos is dangerous. i will add a little more: your statement that plaster rarely contains asbestos is wrong. probably while you were still in a baby stroller, i listened to old men tell me that they used to buy bags of asbestos and dump it into the plaster they were mixing (bags like we buy powder dry wall compound or dash patch or thinset). it may be that the original plaster work in the brownstones pre dates the intense use of asbestos in this country (i just googled it and it seems that it was used in plaster from the 1930’s until the 1970’s). the concern for a statement like that is, we do not know if that ceiling was not put up when they divided a lot of these homes into multi family, in the 1930’s or 40’s, and new plaster containing asbestos was used in the process.
you are not aware of this but for someone like myself who has done a lot of this and has worked along side of people who have done the stuff i have not done, we can tell that you have not been in this very long. you are reading it , i bet some times right before you post it. i said it the other day, it might be better to say that you read something someplace just like i said I googled that asbestos was used in plaster from the ’30’s…… – that way if something is wrong with that statement, people realize how it happen and that we are not simply naive. let people know to take what you are saying with a grain of salt.
i dropped something to you a few weeks back about something you said. you said something that had me doubting myself. For folks that are coming up in this now, be aware that things are changing very fast – at a head spinning pace for someone like me and anyone older and things we always took for granted, are changing because of new chemicals and processes (when i was growing up i watched a man build a boat. i watched him glue the joints with resourcenol – a product i used for water applications until the 1990’s. i recently spoke to this now old man who built that boat and he said to me “keep in mind we had to use that stuff because we did not have all those epoxies you have now. he was correct. btw, resourcenol is dangerous) . some months back, you, urbandad, stated something entirely contrary to what i was taught in the 1970’s and carried through my life until present- that latex paint can go over oil. to me that sounds absurd. i think the reason you might have said it (keep in mind, as a contractor, when things other people do fail, we try to find out what they did and why so we do not make the same mistake and i thought about this here, with you) is because you are thinking you would not put the hard oil paint over soft latex as the harder finish would “crack” off. which is true. but you even had me thinking something must have changed in the processes or chemicals and we can now put latex over oil. i googled it; we can no more put latex over oil today than we could in 1976.
you are saying this stuff you are gathering from someplace and conjecturing and a lot of people on here do not realize that you do not have first hand experience – this can be dangerous. i can tell you have no first hand experience because i have been working in buildings and on job sites for a long time and have a lot of paid safety training, by licensed professionals. to say something like you said that plaster rarely contains asbestos is wrong. even if there is a chance it does not, if someone acts on that and demos the plaster in a house themselves over say a month period, busting it up and putting it in bags, with a cheap n95 mask (or no mask, i hate masks), do you not think a month of daily exposure might not put enough of this crap in their lungs to potentially become a problem?
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
Cate, op is using verbage that makes me think they are certain, by a test. I have heard of people sending plaster off for testing. I am not sure how the results come back. Maybe the brooklyn homes predate the use of this stuff in plaster? It was added to a lot of things. Along with horse hair and other fibers.
Since they are not sure and are concerned and none of us are experts, until they have a test result or if they will not be getting one, assume that the plaster contains asbestos and act accordingly.
(As a contractor, we assume certain things until we know otherwise: all wires are live; all old pipes contain gas or a liquid; all paint contains lead; any chemicals that produce a solvent smell are flammable; all plaster and pipe insulation contains bad things and lastly, all dogs bite) .
Since
cate | 4 years and 5 months ago
“White powder” could be plaster dust. Your roommate just bought the place and is digging holes in his closet ceiling? Why would a painted plaster ceiling in a closet contain asbestos?
hkapstein | 4 years and 5 months ago
Asbestos is dangerous stuff. People used to DIY stuff all the time, and rarely did those people ultimately develop deadly cancer. Generally this occured in people who worked in the industry and had a lot of repeated exposure. So you can take some comfort that one exposure probably won’t do any serious damage. It’s not a zero risk, but most likely it’s not gonna be a death sentence, so hopefully that makes you feel better. That said, you need to stop touching it until you understand how to deal with it.
Now you did not provide enough information for us to really know what is going on. Was it a drop ceiling, or original plaster? Plaster rarely contains asbestos, but a drop ceiling commonly does. A lab can tell you if there’s asbestos in your sample, or an asbestos contractor can get it tested for you. Now if you have to ask a lot of questions about this, I suggest you get an asbestos contractor to deal with it. If it’s a small area, expect to spend 700-2000 bucks to have it removed. If it can be encapsulated, it may be cheaper, but it’s hard to say without knowing more.
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
So a couple of things. First there is friable and non friable. Friable can crumble in our hands. They there is the general condiotion of it. When i took classes in this and when they talk about lead paint, they often address condiotion. Is it firm and sealed. If it is decaying it is a problem right off. If it is firm and that closet is empty, maybe they want to laminate rock over it, before it becomes a problem.
Or, i did just google this because i did not know, but they do make paints designed to hold this stuff back. It sounds like that is what should be done, at minimum, for peace of mind.
Go on the net and read and assume worst case scenario.
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
So it came back positive? Read about this on the net and see if certain paints should be used to seal it and hold it back.
A lot of people on here will not want to suggest this is ok, to have in a closet. A lot of people who are never around hazardous materials get very nervous and those of us who are around them are not nervous even though we know we should be. That goes for every contractor reading this right now.
See what government agencies say about this and advise your friend to err on the side of caution. Even though i stuck my neck out above in saying what i said, having this where the clothes are and that it might decay over time is something to consider. As i said, i have some on a pipe in my basement. If the pipe were in my living space or around my son, i would have had it removed already.
bryan.lebaron | 4 years and 5 months ago
Thank you everyone! The sample was 1 inch, 1 teaspoon, just in the corner. He just bougt the place and wanted to know if there is asbestos since its in the closet.
I just dont know how much asbestos can go into air while taking sample not proffesionaly (he didnt use protective clothing,he sprayed the ceiling but it didnt took much water bc it was painted and then he just wiped under after but bc of no protective clothing walking around he might spread the fibers around), and if that is dangerous, since all stuff were in that room. There was no visible dust in air. And if clothes rubbing agains painted asbestos ceiling are in danger too or the paint is protecting the asbestos. So was wondering if anyone have this knowledge.
cate | 4 years and 5 months ago
Even when asbestos is present, it is harmless unless it is crumbling. So if the ceiling does contain asbestos and was in good condition before your roommate took a sample, he or she may have created a problem where there was not one before. Tenants should not be carrying out work for which they are unqualified, especially without permission of the owner, or damaging a building.
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
first, if your roommate has not already done so, send a sample to a lab. but even getting the sample might expose you to some so wear a p100 mask (not an n95). i was pulling a sample from fire insulation blocks along a duct once, under the direction of an architect or engineer, and it crumpled and broke sending a plume of dust around my face. with no mask on, i simply exhaled until i was out of the area (and the lab result in that case confirmed it was asbestos and i was younger at the time and think it was irresponsible of the architect or engineer to send me up the ladder for it without a mask).
people are going to crucify me for saying this on here but if what happen in your house was only a bit and if any landed say on a hard surface, you can wipe it with water and a towel. if it went on the bedding and rug i suppose that is another story (see what resto says). as soon as what ever was in the air settled to the floor, i would walk in there with no mask. would i let my son walk in? no. do i want that stuff on my clothes and then i carry it in to my family? no. but at this point i have put worse stuff in my lungs and a little asbestos is not going to hurt (at my age).
for years men worked with this stuff with no issue (i know men who worked with it on and off for years and all of them smoked cigarettes and i would listen to them telling stories about handling this stuff at break time, as they smoke cigarettes, and i used to wonder how stupid could people be). for years all of us have breathed this stuff in with no consequence. that is right, i just said it; “for years all of us have breathed this in with no consequence” and so far as i know we still do – that is because it is in the brake linings of cars (when i took a mechanics course as a kid we were told that “under no circumstances were we to use a dust gun to blow the dust off the brake parts of a car”; mechanics are considered a high risk for mesothe….). i wonder if the subway brake pads have asbestos in them?
to prove my point about us breathing this in on the street, an asbestos abatement engineer once told me that the way they tell if you have a asbestos problem in the air of a building in the city is to put a measuring device in the building and one on the street outside the building. if the reading on the device inside the building is higher than what is outside the building, there is a problem in the building (this was said to me years ago, at a college class in the ’90’s; not sure how it holds today). what he told me was they had to account for the asbestos from brake linings in the air outside (that does not comfort me).
i am not saying it is safe to have this stuff around us and as we saw with 911, any accident can move the crap from the (possibly) encapsulated confines of a building into the greater atmosphere and we have thousands breathing it in. but there is a lot of hysteria out there: some years back i heard someone say “there is asbestos in tampons” as if all of the world’s women were going to die of mesotheleoma. as i listened to this i was trying to figure out if asbestos affected other parts of the body and if it did not, how would it make it from the tampon into a woman’s lungs. does it move through her blood stream? or out of the tampon and into the air as it is removed from the packaging? i just checked snopes and as of now they say that the “asbestos in tampons” story was or is a rumor but one thing is certain, there is a lot of hysteria (mixed in with a lot of facts that we should heed) out there and the tampon rumor sort of proves it. the media and the lawyers elevate the risks around stuff like this.
in short, do you want to breath that in? no. is a little exposure for a few minutes going to kill you? not likely. are there ways to mitigate it? yes. as i said i would not even wear a mask going in there (once it had settled) and if i thought it was on things, i would perhaps use a trigger sprayer to wet things and wipe it up and wet the beddings and get rid of them.
for those who feel what i said about is dangerous and risky, be rest assured, in my professional life i do not touch this stuff in people’s houses and have a piece on a pipe in my own house and i am quite happy with it remaining undisturbed, where it is.