In renovating the basement, I tore up some carpet (some of you may recall me asking about that.)
Someone warned me about asbestos tile, but I just assumed it was linoleum. I mean, I had previously had asbestos tile in my old home so I thought I knew what the stuff was. Three hours of shirt-soaked-with-sweat-cardio labor later, my dad comes into the basement with a mug of coffee and takes a long sip. He asks what I’m doing shredding up the asbestos with a scraper.
I had already been wearing a mask from cleaning up fiberglass insulation, so I guess that makes me a little lucky. Oh well, I guess I lost a few hours off my life or something. The majority of it was in large chunks and I wasn’t exactly making the stuff airborne on purpose, nor have I vacuumed or anything. Still, not one of my brightest days.
Its an N95, so I guess I have lungs filled with microscopic fibers. Hey, atleast they’re not huge. I’m staying out of the area for 48 hours or something (not like I have a choice, I have work during the week) and I’m going to carefully wet-mop it all and call it quits.
My grandmother was a teacher in a one room school house. She used to tell me that one of the main art supplies provided by the board of education was in fact asbestos. Apparently it was good for sculpting when moistened. Basically every Canadian kid who went to school during that period spent several hours a week touching, molding and breathing in asbestos. As far as I know we haven’t had an entire generation drop dead from mesothelioma. I think you’ll be OK
Yeah, I’m not terrified or anything. As far as I can tell, I shouldn’t even get much symptom related for 10 - 30 years or something, and it was a one-time exposure. The trick is those art supplies were probably containing asbestos - that tile was 25 to 30% asbestos by weight. But really in two days I’ll forget about it and continue living so whatevs
[quote]CapnYousef wrote:
The trick is those art supplies were probably containing asbestos
[/quote]
That’s what I thought too, but no, it was literally handfuls of asbestos these kids were playing with. They used the stuff like kids today use paper mache.
What a time eh? “Tommy, if you keep acting up in class I’m going to revoke your asbestos privileges!”
I’m down with that. Is it sad that to relax after a few hours of shoulder/bicep killing scraping I’m sitting here working out a nutrition plan for the summer? Like, I could be watching TV or pulling a Kerley… but I’m nerding out over breakfast options.
How old are you? You have like 30 to 45 years for anything to even develop. Pffft. Seriously, though, I used to do work in this area and it was the repeated exposures (guys in the Navy, guys working in certain plants) who developed mesothelioma. I wouldn’t sweat it.
[quote]attydeb2005 wrote:
How old are you? You have like 30 to 45 years for anything to even develop. Pffft. Seriously, though, I used to do work in this area and it was the repeated exposures (guys in the Navy, guys working in certain plants) who developed mesothelioma. I wouldn’t sweat it. [/quote]
Thats the spirit! Yeah, just ticked to 18 a few months back - I was half-concerned at first, then I thought about it and decided all I cared about was finally getting a shower. Granted I’m minimizing exposure as best as possible to be safe but I’m in no way letting this affect my cortisol levels- gotta keep that trainin’ optimal etc
I unknowingly tore up an entire room of asbestos tile in our first house… 20 years ago… without any mask.
I’m still here with no obvious health issues. But I guess we’ll see in a few more years.
I did some demo work in some ladies house in a bathroom that was full of asbestos with no mask. I was coughing up black shit for a few days. I hadn’t even thought about it until now. I’m still alive
worked at a paper mill in college and they ahd us demolish an old control room building in the machine room. Dust everywhere, we ripped and tore on it for two days. Come in the third day and it’s all roped off, supervisor said they realized the tiles and wallboard had asbestos, we can’t work on it any more. Pointed out we had done all the hard work the previous two days and sucked in a ton of dust and he said oh it’s okay, you just can’t be around it now.
Cause asbestos won’t hurt you unless you know it’s there. Right?
[quote]lawsonsamuels wrote:
worked at a paper mill in college and they ahd us demolish an old control room building in the machine room. Dust everywhere, we ripped and tore on it for two days. Come in the third day and it’s all roped off, supervisor said they realized the tiles and wallboard had asbestos, we can’t work on it any more. Pointed out we had done all the hard work the previous two days and sucked in a ton of dust and he said oh it’s okay, you just can’t be around it now.
Cause asbestos won’t hurt you unless you know it’s there. Right?[/quote]
Don’t lose any sleep over it. You really had no fine-particulate action going on and basements tend to be damp, so I doubt much was airborne, plus your shirt soaked it up, lol. I had some old steam pipes in my basement that were asbestos wrapped. I used a good respirator, wet it down with soapy water and dropped it piece by piece into a plastic bag. I did the same when I scrapped the boiler, the chamber was all asbestos brick.
What really sucks is now that you know it is there you are going to have to have a licensed remediator come in and remove it and dispose of it properly. You cant just pull it up and throw it away.