Rewiring a house with asbestos walls
If you wanted to do this by the book, the only contractors that should be disturbing the asbestos containing materials are official asbestos contractors. But perhaps you could hire one to drill holes where you need them, or remove some sections of the plaster and then use those bays to run your wiring, and cover with modern material. I’d expect to find asbestos plaster in fire rated walls, so you might find that some walls don’t have this feature, and that might be useful to know. Depending on how much material is removed, it may not be that expensive to do the asbestos work the right way. Good, luck and remember to breath. Just not in your house.
hkapstein
in General Discussion 6 years ago
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Guest User | 6 years ago
We recently bought an old townhouse house which unfortunately has asbestos in all the original walls.
The house has very old K&T wiring so we need to rewire the whole house. And we want to keep the plaster walls rather than do a gut. Our architect/contractor says we can’t do the typical “fishing” of electrical wires through the plaster walls, as one normally might do, due to our asbestos problem. He says the electrician may not even make small holes in the walls since that’s disturbing the asbestos. Of course he is correct that it would be disturbing a small amount of asbestos, but is there a way to cut holes in a legal, safe way? Btw we are planning to do everything with proper permits etc.
Therefore architect is recommending surface mounted wiring /conduit as the only option. We are disappointed due to aesthetic reasons.
Opinions? is he correct that surface mounted is the answer?
Has anyone else had this problem and if so how did you solve it?
stevecym | 6 years ago
the asbestos is always going to be a problem, so why not this: use the surface mounted channels and laminate rock to both sides of them and then tape/plaster over them. we used to use those channels and if i recall they are only like 1/2″ deep? so 5/8″ rock will be thick enough?
i just opened a website that states homeowners in NYS (not the city; did not check that) can remove this stuff themselves in single family homes. they still have to dispose of it legally and there is a firm that will pick it up and give you a reciept for it and take it to a facility.
there are safe ways to deal with it. a mist of water on the area being cut helps and a proper particle mask and they require anyone dealing with it to wear a disposable one piece suit.
i was am not qualified to speak on anything i said above and only stated this to give you avenues to search. there is plenty of written material on the web, re safety and regulations. take a look at it.
steve
Guest User | 6 years ago
is the asbestos in the plaster itself or is it behind the plaster?
stevecym | 6 years ago
@maggie: they used to mix it in the plaster, along with horse hair and other stuff. looks like before they began the job they sent a sample of plaster to a lab.
so i just took at quick look at a city guide. it is on line. it looks like disturbing 10 sq feet or more is what makes it an “asbestos job”. i would keep digging around and finding out if you can make this pass under some threshold and perhaps see if you can do some of this yourself – i mean drilling holes for the electrician. provided that this might be a legal route.
stevecym | 6 years ago
Guest User | 6 years ago
i’m aware of that, steve, it just wasn’t clear to me whether that’s what the OP was talking about. if that is the case – you will be living with this material in your house. if you want to hang a picture you will disturb it. if you want to paint, sanding and prepping walls will disturb it. if you have a leak that damages the plaster it will be disturbed. i try not to be hysterical about asbestos as it can be very stable, but this particular use of it i find to be very concerning. it’s great when individual home-owners can carefully remove this material on their own and then it’s gone but that’s not what you’re talking about doing here. you’re talking about living with this material permanently and i think it would be a huge mistake.
cate | 6 years ago
If you did surface mount everything, I doubt it would be to code and might not pass an inspection. I hope someone who has dealt with this problem before can respond.
Guest User | 6 years ago
Much appreciate everyone’s insight!
@Maggie the asbestos is in the inner “brown coat” layer of plaster, not the white skim coat plaster on top. Also our plaster is only 1.5% asbestos also, so it’s not like there is a lot of it. I believe that up to 1% is allowed so we are very close to the threshold. Once we move into the house we won’t be disturbing it on a regular basis so I’m not that concerned about living in an asbestos house.
@Steve Interesting idea about using sheetrock to mask the surface mounted wire, wondering if that would be very expensive and cover up some of the nice plaster details… Re dealing with asbestos in single family homes – ours is a 2 family so I am not sure if we qualify. I agree that I’d like to find a legal way for us to be able to drill the holes ourselves, perhaps with special equipment to minimize the dust. If all the holes the electrician were to drill in the walls were under 10 sq feet, I wonder if that would be a legal way to do it?
@cate why would surface-mounted wire not be to code?
Guest User | 6 years ago
in an exterior job i was involved with we hired an abatement contractor to drill holes in areas where there was asbestos but would otherwise be undisturbed. i’m not sure whether this could be done in an interior job. you might want to talk to an abatement contractor.
stevecym | 6 years ago
cate: surface mount is legal so long as it is “piped” or in conduit. no body wants this in homes but we have used those metal channels and boxes in commercial facilities and in basements people often pull wire through conduit. up to 3′ of armored wire can be exposed outside of a wall, generally to get to the box.
GreenThinker | 6 years ago
In reality, your typical electrician won’t care. He’s getting 12-18k for the job, if he cares enough about his lungs, he’ll wear a mask. He’ll make what ever holes/trenches he needs, vacuum it up, and call it a week. Every day people rip up and disturb this old plaster&lath, usually without even checking for asbestos. For you as the homeowner, it won’t effect your health. For the guy that does it every day for 50 years, maybe, but you pretty much have to be breathing it in every day.
stevecym | 6 years ago
OP: what green thinker says is true. as a contractor i’ve unintentionally disturbed this stuff while working and did not have a mask on. other times i have had to pull samples and wore a p100 mask. am i worried? no. would i expose my son to it? no. can you deal with some of this yourself? it seems like yes with the proper precautions.
i do want to add something here: green thinker says the electrician would “vacuum it up”. just as we have specialized vacuums for dealing with lead dust, there are special vacuums for dealing with asbestos. trying to do this with a regular contractor’s vacuum will just spread the stuff around. the proper vacuums have hepa filters and all sorts of approvals from testing labs, etc.
greenworks | 6 years ago
and adding my two cents — it’s not like surface mounting will leave the asbestos undisturbed — it’s not like they’re going to glue the conduit straps and j boxes to the walls — the straps and boxes will be mounted using screws and they’ll have to drill into the plaster, which creates dust as well. granted, on a MUCH lesser scale, but since they’re taking this so seriously, it’s not like they’re going to leave it COMPLETELY undisturbed.
What greenthinker says.
Guest User | 6 years ago
guess i’m comparatively hysterical about this. the plaster has a low acm percentage and everything and everyone will probably be fine. unfortunately, there is a lot of money to be made in asbestos litigation.
stevecym | 6 years ago
maggie, there are still cars on the road with asbestos brake linings. they are phasing them out but when i took a building related class in the 1990’s, this is what we were told by the instructor (a licensed PE): “this is how they check to see if you have an asbestos problem in a building: they take an air sample outside the building , on the street, and they take a sample in the building. if the sample in the building is higher, you have an asbestos problem in your building”.
in short, it was all around us to some degree or another.
sorry to those folks who think i beat every post dead, but i thought this was pertinent and interesting. my thought is what i am saying helps to put things in perspective.
Guest User | 6 years ago
i agree, it’s all around us. in most cases it’s not a problem, until it becomes one. it becomes a problem indoors when you’re actively disturbing it. it’s a problem for folks who are exposed to it on a regular basis throughout their working lives (contractors included). i worked in a building that had asbestos cement panels on some walls. we had a painter coming to paint it and i told him not to sand those panels, just paint over what was there. he said he didn’t care but it was still on my watch. he didn’t sand those panels.
stevecym | 6 years ago
maggie, we are right to tell people not to chip or sand or disturb this stuff unless: 1. it is necessary and 2. it is done safely. i do not want someone messing with this stuff in my presence either and certainly not around my family. but i sometimes feel that the politicians make these laws to protect us (which they should do) and then they collude with private industry (perhaps silently) to scare the public into believing that this stuff and lead and other things are so bad that homeowners cannot deal with it them themselves with a little knowledge and perhaps $500 worth of safety equipment (including a Hepa Vac) or $100 worth of safety equipment if it is something real small. there is a lot of money spent in training and licensing here and a lot of homeowners who might not have the money feel compelled to hire “specialists” who are not much more qualified than they could be themselves.
i don’t want to make a case that we should accept this stuff and its presence in our lives but i also wonder if the hype is a little misleading sometimes, whether intentio nal or not; i do not always trust the motives of the government and wonder if it is more economic.
i heard other contractors suggest things like this “a money grab”. i wonder if other brownstoners think it as well.
sorry to those who feel i beat every post down, but i felt there was more to this here.