Asbestos: what to check before work starts

This is a different kind of guide, because there is usually no emergency — there is a decision. Something is about to be cut, sanded, drilled or demolished, and the question is whether that is safe to do.

• Stop work on the material. Do not cut, break, sand, drill or scrape it, and do not try to see what is inside it.
• Turn off fans, and the furnace or air conditioning, so dust is not carried through the building. Close the door on the room.
• Keep people out, particularly children and anyone who is pregnant, and do not let anyone sweep or vacuum the debris.
• Photograph the material where it sits, and write down where it is — which room, which surface, roughly how much of it. That list is what shapes the sampling plan.
• Note when the building was built and when it was last renovated. Asbestos was used into the 1980s, and a 1920s building re-done in 1975 has 1975 materials in it.
• Ask anyone working on the building to stop until it has been tested. A contractor who shrugs and says it is fine has told you something about how they work.

If material has already been disturbed, do not clean it up yourself with a household vacuum or a broom. Leave the area closed and call.

The instinct to tidy up is the thing that turns a contained hazard into an exposure.

• Do not break a piece off to see whether it looks like asbestos. You cannot tell by looking, and it is not a material that gives you a second chance to be careful.
• Do not sweep, dust, or vacuum it with an ordinary machine. A household vacuum exhausts fine fibers back into the room.
• Do not wet it down and pull it out yourself. Wet methods are for trained crews working inside containment with the right equipment and disposal route.
• Do not put it in the household trash or a dumpster. Asbestos waste has its own handling and disposal route, and the paperwork is part of it.
• Do not let a renovation or a water repair start on the assumption that it is probably just plaster. Joint compound, floor tile and the mastic under it, pipe insulation, boiler lagging, roof cement and vermiculite attic insulation are all common.
• Do not assume a small job is exempt. A few square feet of disturbed material still puts fibers into the air you are breathing.

In Chicago’s older housing stock, asbestos turns up in places that are not obvious — and in the places a water or fire repair has to open.

Floor tile and the black mastic under it; the joint compound and texture coat on drywall and plaster; pipe and boiler insulation, especially on heating systems; the board around a furnace or a flue; roof cement and flashing; window glazing and putty; vermiculite insulation in an attic or a wall cavity; and older sheet vinyl with a paper backing.

Two conditions matter. Friable material crumbles under hand pressure and releases fibers easily. Non-friable material is bound into something solid, like a floor tile, and is a problem mainly when it is cut, sanded or broken. Both need to be known about before work starts.

Lead paint usually lives in the same buildings and the same walls. A pre-1978 building being renovated is a lead question as well as an asbestos question, and the two are handled together.

The EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting rule covers paid work that disturbs paint in pre-1978 housing. Illinois sets its own requirements for asbestos in renovation and demolition, and a licensed inspector is who tells you which apply to your job.

This is the one where the honest answer is usually no. Homeowners and commercial property policies commonly treat asbestos as a pollutant, and pollution is commonly excluded.

Two ways this goes wrong. One: assuming the policy will pay for abatement, then finding out it will not after work has started. Two: commissioning a report you did not need for a job that would not have disturbed anything. Ask before either.

There is no safe do-it-yourself removal. What a homeowner can do is the part before and around it, and that part matters more than people expect.