Situation: house from 1974 with an acoustic ceiling (aka popcorn ceiling)
Location: Southern California, more specifically Orange County
The fashion nowadays is to scrape the ceiling to remove the old-fashioned ceiling treatment. However, the old-fashioned ceiling treatment may contain asbestos. Companies that specialize in removing asbestos charge a lot more than your regular painter.
A friend of mine (really, a friend of mine - not me!) told me that in his humble opinion, people that work with asbestos full time need to have the hazmat suits etc. because they have a lot of exposure, but if you’re just scraping one house and wear a standard mask that painters use you would be fine.
Is he being over-optimistic?
A painter gave an estimate for scraping the ceiling and didn’t say anything about asbestos. Maybe the painter is kind of careless when it comes to that. I know it’s possible to have the ceiling tested for asbestos particles. Supposing it does contain asbestos, how much harm would it really do when the scraping job is complete? Suppose you ventilate the house as well as possible after the painting job is done.
If you have a painter willing to come in and scrape it without ever knowing or caring if it contains asbestos I’d say let him. Since he’s going to be making a mess regardless the room needs to be blocked off. Before he’s done make sure he’s vacuumed all the dust. Wet mop when he’s done and call it good.
Your friend is willing to take on more risk then I would. Asbestos is not a super deadly radioactive product from the depths of hell some make it out to be but it isn’t good for you. Your standard mask isn’t rated for asbestos, so I wouldn’t count on it to protect your lungs.
I don’t know what the law actually is, but the usual real estate advice around here is not to test for things like that, because once you know, you would have to disclose the information when you sell the house.
even if it is not asbestos: since the work is overhead a disposable plastic painters hooded suit (left inside the room) will keep from bringing the dust out on your clothes. a respirator dust mask (tight fitting rubber with cartridges) is better than a dust mask.
you would want to seal the room (heating/ventilation ducts) windows and doors during the work. then sweep, vacuum and wet wipe. ventilation during or after only makes any dust problem worse (asbestos or not) it is not a vapor you want to spread out.
you could take a sample to an asbestos testing lab and have a bulk test examination to see if it contained asbestos, you then would have an idea.
My ceiling was up to 10% chrysotile asbestos. I wetted it thoroughly and scraped it myself. Wouldn’t do it again, not because I do or don’t fully understand the safety issues, but because it was a major pain in the ass. Original sections peeled off easily, but there were lots of rock hard patches that were difficult to remove. And then I realized this: they didn’t put up that popcorn ceiling because the original plaster was pristine. What was under the popcorn was a godawful cracked mess. Next room that gets done gets the pro treatment.
Thank you for the info. In this case, the ceilings would be scraped while the house is empty, then all the carpets will be replaced with either new carpet or hardwood flooring. There are also hardwood floors and linoleum floors in the house, the existing hardwood floors will stay, and the linoleum replaced with tile.
From what I read in this thread, it seems that getting rid of the old carpets and linoleum, and carefully cleaning the hardwood floors, would be safe enough? Note that young children will be moving into the house (two children ages 9 and 5).
Don’t know if it’s still true, and may in fact be a state issue. We removed asbestos siding from a house before installing vinyl siding and were told at the time that if a homeowner does it, the debris can go in the regular trash. If a contractor did it, it had to go to a hazardous waste dump.
Of course that’s assuming the homeowner knows for a fact that it does contain asbestos.
It’s legal to remove it (or have it removed) in most states, although there might be a California-specific law I am unaware of. I’m a painting contractor and it’s legal for me to remove it where I live but you might want to check with your local EPA office to be sure. A dust mask won’t cut it, whoever works with this stuff needs a NIOSH-rated respirator.
The material should be wetted down to prevent fibers going airborne. Also make sure that whoever does it seals all the duct work so you don’t have fibers settling in your ducts.
If there is asbestos in the ceiling finish and you don’t think you can keep a clean area as shown in this link, then don’t try this at home!
It specifically says not to sweep or vacuum debris and it should all be able to be rolled up in the plastic sheeting for disposal in a hazardous waste facility, not the local dump.
Asbestos is seriously scary stuff and should be handled seriously. Short cuts to avoid paying for a certified removal company may see you or your children getting mesothelioma or asbestosis.
Another vote here for no big deal. The hazards of asbestos to consumers are greatly over rated. Yes, many people heavily exposed to asbeatos on the job have come down with the same nasty cancer. That form of cancer is almost unknown outside of those people.
Yes, wet it down, clean up good afterwards, and use a real respirator if you can find one.
You have the bureaucrats, lawyers, and contractors cooperating to enrich each other at our expense. The lead in paint is another one. Most of the paint post WWII never did have much lead in it. Certainlly not enough to hurt anybody.
For a vintage 1974 house with popcorn ceiling, odds are high that it does indeed contain asbestos. The biggest danger is the airborne dust while the work is being done. If you clean up in the ways discussed above, you’ll be just fine living in the house afterward.
The main health hazard from exposure is that you get lung cancer 20 years later. If you do it yourself and suffer no immediate ill effects, that doesn’t mean all is well.
Dealling with asbestos is a crap shoot. Some people can have problems with little exposure and some can take large exposures and show no side effects. I am comming up on my 40th year since my last major exposure and breathing a sigh of relief. My dad shipped in the merchant marine for 15 years worked around it in the cold storage industry for another 30+ years. He lived to be 80, and he also smoked.
If you remove it yourself. Keep it wet down as you are scrappping. Cover the floor. Do not vacumm up any dust clean up with a damp cloth. And forget using the “standard dust mask” get a good resperator and get fitted for it.
I am not about to burrow through the nonsense on the internet to confirm what I know from working in the industry. I know what went into paint because I put it there.
Oh! Cool. “Because I said so” is ever so convincing. :rolleyes:
Congrats for being the first person on this site to make it to my “ignore” list for being 100 percent monumentally unhelpful, no matter the topic.
Have a lovely day!
Another option, perhaps pricier, is to have a new layer of drywall installed right on top of the existing ceiling, entombing the asbestos and and letting a later generation deal with it.
The link is about the chrysotile form of asbestos since that’s what I was looking for. I had thought it was the one that was most dangerous. I was wrong, but did find what I was looking for.
You don’t fool around with asbestos removal, especially the kind that can become airborne once you start scraping it off. My advice would be to call a company that specializes in asbestos abatement, and let them give you their professional advice on how to get rid of it.
