Asbestos in the Home - Contents

• What is Asbestos?
• What is Asbestos Used For?
• Where is Asbestos in the Home?
• Vermiculite Insulation
• Asbestos Health Issues
• Cancer – Mesothelioma
• What Should I Do If I Think I Have Asbestos in the Home?

What is Asbestos?

Asbestos is a name for a group of minerals that forms in fibers that have proven useful for various industrial purposes. Basically it is a rock that is mined out of the ground and then converted to industrial use.

There are actually six different mineral species that are legally defined as asbestos when occurring as fibers; these minerals must occur as a fiber to be considered asbestos for legal purposes.

Sometimes lawyers will make a big issue over whether a material in question is truly a fiber or not. The reason lawyers get involved is because asbestos exposure damages the lungs and can cause a particularly deadly form of cancer called mesothelioma.

The fibrous nature of asbestos made it easy to work with (like a textile) and opened up a range of industrial uses, including various building materials used in the home.

Additionally, the flame retardant nature of the asbestos has been know since the time of the early Greeks. Since asbestos could be weaved like fabric, flame resistant blankets and tablecloths were made throughout history.

In more recent times asbestos was used for firefighter gear and fireproofing materials in buildings.

Asbestos is best known for being flame retardant, but it has other useful properties as well such as resistance to chemicals, high tensile strength, and flexibility.

Many of the asbestos containing building materials one may find in the home actually did not use asbestos for flame retardant properties but simply because it was a fiber, and fibers make a good filler product that makes a material stronger and more flexible.

The good news is that most products were no longer manufactured with asbestos after 1978 in the US, so if you live in a newer home there is less of chance of asbestos being present.

Even in newer homes though there is still a chance that asbestos can be there (read about vermiculite below). In older homes asbestos can commonly be found in:

• ceiling texture,
• drywall joint compound,
• floor tiles and floor tile mastic (glue),
• back of linoleum
• window caulking

So called “popcorn” ceiling texture sometimes contained 2% to 3% asbestos.

Floor tiles that are 9" by 9" almost always have 3% to 5% asbestos present as does the black mastic (glue) on the back (12" by 12" tiles are less predictable).

Some times the back of linoleum is a mat of pure asbestos.

Exterior cement siding called transite often had large quantities of asbestos as well (around 35% asbestos).

If a material is composed of more than 1% asbestos then it is legally considered an asbestos containing material. In California it only takes 0.1% asbestos.

After 1978, most of these products transitioned into using different types of fibers as filler, but certain products such as brake pads may still contain asbestos.

There is also an issue that some materials may not have been intentionally manufactured with asbestos, but asbestos may be present as contamination product. There was scare in the 90’s that crayons were contaminated with asbestos, but the evidence did not hold up.

Vermiculite has gained some media attention in recent years because of this fear of contamination.

Vermiculite is another mineral that has a lot of commercial and industrial uses, one of which is home insulation.

It has been determined recently that certain deposits where vermiculite was mined was contaminated with a mineral very similar to asbestos, and there is a chance that vermiculite insulation produced from these mines will have this asbestos-like mineral present.

There is still some question whether this asbestos-like mineral satisfies the legal definition of asbestos, but the EPA recently declared the area around a vermiculite mine in Libby Montana as a superfund site. Asbestos related illness is markedly higher in the area around Libby.

Note that vermiculite itself is not dangerous, but it may be contaminated with a mineral very similar to tremolite asbestos or actinolite asbestos.

The fibrous nature of asbestos that made it so useful industrially also makes it a danger when inhaled.

Asbestos fibers can actually be so small that it take an electron microscope to see them, and these tiny unseen fibers can easily travel inside the body to the lungs. The fibrous shape basically gives the asbestos a “pointy end” that can poke into the lung tissue and damage it.

There are two main types of disease that can occur from asbestos exposure – asbestosis (scarring of the lungs) and malignant mesothelioma (a cancer). Mesothelioma cancer is the more deadly.

Malignant mesothelioma cancer is a particularly bad form of cancer that almost always results from asbestos exposure.

The protective lining of the lungs (and sometimes other organs) develops cancer as result of the asbestos fibers embedding themselves into it.

Mesothelioma cancer often occurs 20 or more years after exposure, but once diagnosed the life expectancy usually ranges from months to a few years.

Mesothelioma cancer is not the same as "lung cancer" as one might get from cigarettes, but it is just as deadly or even more so. Cigarettes will tend to aggravate the situation though.

If you think you have asbestos present in your home, the key is not to disturb it.

For the most part, fiber release and therefore asbestos exposure is limited if the material is in good shape and not disturbed.

Most asbestos laws do not apply to private homes, but even in public buildings the laws are oriented around renovation and demolition, actions that will disturb the asbestos.

Dealing with asbestos in the home will be discussed further in another article, Asbestos Testing and Asbestos Removal in the Home. Other articles that discuss this in detail include Asbestos Testing Tips for Homeowners, Residential Asbestos Removal and Asbestos Abatement Tips, and How to Interpret Asbestos Testing Lab Reports.

Additonal Links

• EPA - Asbestos
• Asbestos Testing Kit Review
  
• Asbestos Information: Law, Removal, Testing, and More
  
• Asbestos Laws and Asbestos Regulations that are Often Ignored
• Asbestos Testing Tips for Homeowners
  
• Residential Asbestos Removal and Asbestos Abatement Tips
• Asbestos.com
• Mesothelioma.com
• Where to Buy a Microscope
• My Other Articles