I was just visiting an IKEA store-I noticed that there is no ceiling-you just see the beams and dupports -covered with asbestos fire retardant material!! This means (potentially) that asbestos fibers could be breaking off and being inhaled by the customers!
Does this mean that IKEA could be sued by the law firms that went after Johns-Manville?
I doubt it was actually asbestos. There are a number of foam and fiber-based fire retardants out there that are not asbestos, for all that they do look like asbestos.
If you really think it was asbestos, call your local environmental or building inspectors, and tell them your suspicions.
From what I recall from my time with ConEd, where one of my duties was identifying fiber samples to determine whether they were asbestos or something else, even with a microscope, it takes a number of tests to determine whether something were asbestos, or fiberglass, for example. And at least one of the tests involved polarized lighting.
ETA: But, AIUI if it were asbestos, they could be sued.
I guarantee it wasn’t. Probably a more modern (and more effective) material, such as this.
To the OP, yes, they can be sued, anybody can. *Winning * is another matter.
Comon it’s not asbestos. Asbestos hasn’t been used in construction in the U.S. since the early 1970s. Even if they wanted to spray asbestos insulation onto the ironwork, where would they buy it?
I doubt you can even put asbestos in a building today.
This is all part of a cost savings concept that some interior designers are touting as a ‘look’. All it is doing is saving the cost of a finish ceiling.
There is a Rock Bottom Brewery in Seattle that has a dropped ceiling, except that certain areas are open to the structure and they are exposing the fireproofing. The material QED cited appears to be more a an intumescent material which has fire protection as it heats up. I personally like this material better then sprayed fireproofing, but it is quite expensive compared to spray fireproofing (which isn’t cheap either!)
Fireproofing is usually a sprayed product (which I admit does look like asbestos) that for each inch of material gives you ‘x’ amount of fireproofing of the steel.
Go into almost any commerical office building and in the garage you likely will see this fireproofing.
So save your lawsuit for something else 
Can someone explain to me why we’re fireproofing steel supports?
I think the idea is to insulate the supports from heat in case of fire, since they will fail if they get too hot.
Because steel deforms under high temperatures such as a fire. So you fireproof it to help it achieve the hourly rating required by the building code. Most building structural systems require a 1, 2 or 3 hour rating on the structure depending upon occupancy, etc.
So they don’t melt, like on 9/11.
I keed, I keed!
I think that’s an important point. Asbestos is a really good insulator and to my understanding, the original design plan for the Trade Towers called for asbestos to be used. Sometimes I wonder if things would have gone better if asbestos had been used.
Not sure what you mean by “melt” but in the case of 9/11 the floor joists got hot enough to sag which pulled the walls IN causing them to snap. Had the insulation in the WTC not blown off on impact the buildings would have stood longer. The insulation was changed during the building process due to environmental challenges.
And the material in the store is not asbestos.
I take it you’ve never been to a Sam’s Warehouse either?
I don’t remember if asbestos was used on the Twin Towers. I do recall that something was, but the problem was that the impact of the plane on each tower shredded the covering.
Well, speaking of asbestos, litigation, and why asbestos is no longer used for insulation in the US.
AIUI the way that asbestos acts as a carcinogen is that the fibers get into the lungs, and never leave. And while they’re there, because the ends of the fibers are so sharp, they keep punching holes in the aveoli. This stress on the repair mechanisms of the cells, keeping it constantly working, is what allows for errors in the DNA/RNA coding to get into the system, and then cause the cells to begin manufacturing cancerous masses.
Because the asbestos is sharp. And because there’s no effective means for the body to expell the rigid microfibers.
Anyone who has handled loose fiberglass can attest to those fibers being sharp as hell - that’s why it causes such itching and irritation when the fibers are in your clothes or hair. And glass is no more amenable to being dissolved than asbestos is. Which would leave only the various mechanical methods of contaminate removal to get them out of the lungs. Which we know doesn’t work well on the microfibers of asbestos. And asbestos microfibers look remarkably like fiberglass fibers. For gross shape, at least.
There are already some studies showing fiberglass exposure being linked to mesotheliomas. That article is dated today, but I only became aware of it when I did a Google search for “fiberglass and lung cancer link.” This concern is not news nor surprising to anyone working with asbestos remediatiion.
Maybe it’s time to sit down and re-evaluate the relative risks and benefits associated with asbestos. Obviously no one is going to suggest using loose fill or sprayed asbestos in buildings. But various forms of ‘fixed’ fiber insulation are being used with fiberglass - why can’t we allow asbestos to be used in the same manner?
It’s only deletorius in it’s friable form. It’s still being used in certain industrial applications where it’s not friable like asphalt products, resin systems, gaskets and texturized paint to name a few.
The litigation has become a shameful farce and huge burden on the civil courts. It was initially meritorious and Johns Manville deserved what they got.
There are many, many plaintiffs without real injury now. W.R. Grace just entered into a 1.8 billion dollar settlement of all it’s asbestos exposure. The settlement is pending approval of the US Bankruptcy Court.
Wiki tells me the first U.S. IKEA store was put up in Plymouth Meeting, Penna. in 1985. I can pretty much guarantee that no builder was using asbestos insulation by that late date or thereafter.
it was used on the lower floors. the stop order came in somewhere around the 40-50 floor range. a different fire retardment was used on the higher floors. the planes hit above the asbestos line.
when the towers collasped, the asbestos could have gone airbourne.
Thanks, Chair. I was thinking ‘Hm… built when? Odd… I didn’t hear asbestos cleanup…’
God, that would have been nasty.
E-Sabbath, and rocking chair, I think you’re underestimating the problem. ISTR a lot of commentary, on the hazmat remediation news and discussions, that asbestos was definitely one of the hazards from the cloud of debris when the towers fell, and during clean up. A quick Googling of “Ground Zero asbestos contamination” gives a lot of hits, not all of which are from asbestos lawyers, or asbestos awareness groups. Including this link, an EPA report from 2002, saying that the asbestos contamination in lower Manhattan is ubiquitous, and as bad as one of the more infamous Superfund sites.
I’d also expect PCBs to have been common through the soil and debris, and heavy metals (but in low concentrations) from electronics in the buildings, too.