How Do You Remove Asbestos?

How Do Your Remove Asbestos?

Depending on the type of material you're removing, the quantity, whether or not you'll be using wet surpression or not will determine whether you should be removing it under Type 1, Type 2 or Type 3 containment procedures.

Today we'll talk a little bit more about how to go about this and whether it's worth the risk for you and your family.  

Now how do you go about this?

There are three, technically four, different types of removal, you have Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3, as well as Type 2 modified (including glove bag). Each one of these different methods and series of procedures and containment measures are applicable to different materials, different quantities and different ways of removal.

What do I mean by different ways of removal? Sometimes you scrape, sometimes you remove, sometimes you're cutting it, sometimes you're cutting it with dustless equipment, sometimes you're wetting it while cutting it before, during and after. Additionally are you using power tools versus no power tools.

These removal methods are to be combined with certain procedure methods and certain materials to fit into Type 1, Type 2, or Type 3. So you really have to understand the regulations to know what you can do in a Type 1, what you can do in a Type 2, and what you have to do in a Type 3.

Type 3 Containment

Type 3 is the biggest the baddest and is used for the most friable asbestos and larger footprints and a Type 3 removal requires a dirty room, shower room and clean room. A notice of project to the city. It requires Negative air pressure during the entire time, a capnometer and a recommended third-party air quality test before taking down the containment. Now, the third party quality test is recommended. It can be done by the same organization, but there can be a conflict of interest there. If you're doing it yourself, well, there's a conflict of interest, but it's your own home.

Type 2 Containment

The Type 2 is for slightly less friable asbestos or certain situations where you're using dustless equipment, and you're using wetting methods. There's no need for a shower room and a change room. You should still have a clean room, but you don't need to have several other measures of Type 3.

Type 1 Containment

Type 1 is for smaller footprint removal of the least type of friable asbestos and the least harmful, such as Chrysotile.

You would have Tremolite on the high end and then Chrysotile on the lower end of the dangerous spectrum due to the composition of the asbestos fibres. Chrysotile will just be like a needle, whereas Tremolite will be a needle with a hook at the end, and anyone can deduce that it would be a lot  harder to get a hook out of a fish than it would be to pull a needle out of a fish. This is the same concept. Those are by no means the only two types of asbestos.

You have Chrysotile, Amosite, Tremolite, and then there are a series of others that are a little less common in residential home construction.

In order to know what kind of asbestos you have, asbestos testing is required. Some people mistakenly think that because their neighbour doesn't have asbestos, that they won't have it either. This couldn't be further from the truth. You can read about it here.

It's important to remember that while asbestos is not toxic, it is hazardous and this is an important matter that needs to be dealt with. There is no sense in panicking. Panicking inhibits proper decision making. If the contractor you're dealing with is putting pressure on you and making you feel uneasy, remember you have options. Consider getting more quotes.

Looking for something else?

Click here for the Kanata Asbestos Removal, Ottawa Asbestos Removal, or Orleans Asbestos Removal.

Legally speaking, you can do asbestos removal in your own home. However, it's important to remember that you have a fiduciary duty to anybody in your home. So especially if you have other adults in the home you have to get their consent and then hopefully you have the best interest of any minors in the home.

There are people that know how to do this stuff very well and there are people that pretend to know how to do this stuff. It's up to you to decide who the real pros are and who you're going to trust to learn this from or who to contract to do this.

Home Depot "Experts"

There are places that sell this type of equipment, and if you're going to go ahead I highly recommend that you seek out places that specifically sell hazardous material equipment. While we have absolutely nothing against Home Depot and purchase plenty of non-asbestos related materials and tools there, we have seen people get incorrect information regarding abatement here. There are people at Home Depot that claim they understand this stuff and have given out advice that they are not qualified to give.

Wrong Suit - A Cautionary Tale

A plumber friend of ours, sought the advice of a gentleman at Home Depot and bought a suit.

We were chatting on a video call after he did asbestos work in his personal home.  As we were chatting, he said not to worry, "I wore a suit".

I noticed he was wearing a suit while driving his van.

I asked, "is that the suit you were wearing? The suit you forgot to doff?"

He was still wearing his contaminated suit in the van, which means that he contaminated the seats of his van, and furthermore, I noticed it wasn't even a Tyvek suit. It was a fabric suit, so that suit was fully contaminated and contaminated his clothes underneath...  expensive clothes.

This gentleman is very bright, and very capable. But not trained.

If you're not used to thinking about every single aspect of contamination, it can be challenging and easy to make a mistake. People who have been trained to work in COVID testing facilities can relate. Some of our staff led the constant and final decontamination of these facilities in Ottawa. It's important to understand that it's not just you, but your footwear, whatever you have on your person, your mask, the walls, the ceilings, the fixtures, the floors, the HVAC, the handles anything you touched, and last but not least, your phone!

If you grab your phone and then bring it out of containment, that's contaminated. Everything you touch is affected, kind of like E. coli in a kitchen. It spreads so fast! There are videos where they do an experiment with a black light and a fake contaminant and it just spreads so quickly.

It's the same thing here. If you haven't been trained to think like this and you haven't been trained for the removal procedures, this can quickly get out of hand and you do contaminate things quickly. With what we just went through, it's such an easy comparison. We all went through that and it was it was scary. But we learned how to do things a specific way and for some people it was just too hard to continuously be mindful of every little detail.

That's what our experts are trained to do. Our technicians are licensed in this and we think about every step and every piece of equipment gets decontaminated. Every bag full of asbestos fibers gets decontaminated before leaving the containment.

These are all steps in the process and are extremely important.

In the end, we'd be happy to give you a free estimate and give you an idea of what's involved.  That way, you can compare the cost of having it done prefessionally and expertly, versus doing it yourself. And at the end of the day, if you still want to do it yourself, we respect your decision and wish a good outcome for you.

More importantly, however, we would hope that you would take a course to make sure you protect yourself and your loved ones.

If you're unable to access the funds right away, we're here to support you. We can guide you through temporary measures and help develop a plan of action to make things more manageable. Whether it's through saving or exploring financing options—which we can assist you with—we're committed to helping you find a solution.

Our goal is always to work closely with our clients, understanding their unique circumstances and offering the best possible support.