Asbestos in heating duct of 1967 home
Hello! We are in the process of having a 1967 Danville home (we are just in contract with) inspected. The pre inspection reports noted "possible asbestos in the heating ducts" and recommended testing to verify. My question is, how do we go about doing this, and does anyone have any contacts for asbestos/environmental testing and remediation? Would a normal contractor be able to do this or is an asbestos ducting specialist of some sort needed? It seems to me this quite common in old homes and not a huge deal? However I definitely feel it is necessary to get it replaced prior to move in. Please share your advise!
Oct 26, 2016
Parent Replies
We had our home tested for asbestos (popcorn ceiling covering, gravel-looking stuff in attic crawl space, lining of old fuse box cupboard). It's easy and affordable for peace of mind and for planning remedial action if necessary. We used Synergy environmental and they were fabulous - extremely fast and responsive. You can pay more for an official report to have on file. In our case, our ceiling coverings did have asbestos so we contracted with them to remediate the material. You have to contract with someone who knows what they are doing and will dispose of the hazardous material appropriately (and protect their workers!). Our attic material turned out to be simply old roofing gravel (yay).
On your timeline - the biggest thing to think about is whether you will disturb the material yourselves (make it "friable" or airborne). If the ducts are under the house, it's possible that you could have it remediated while you are living there with low risk. In our case, every ceiling was covered with it and we are remodeling, so we had it taken care of before we moved in: they lined the inside of the house with two layers of thick plastic, created a negative airflow, sprayed warm water all over the ceiling material, scraped it away, then tested the air quality at the end. No way we could have been there for that. The remediation was an extra expense, but now we can work on the house without worrying about that stuff (plus it was ugly).
We had deteriorated duct work with exposed asbestos insulation. I work in the environmental consulting field and a colleague with asbestos expertise referred me to http://www.synergy-enterprises.org/asbestos.htm for our residential abatement. The duct work and boots (where the registers connect to) were a given that we wanted removed, but we also had the walls of our furnace closet tested (it looked like sprayed on white texture). The test came back positive for asbestos and we had it all abated by synergy prior to moving into our house (it was the first thing we had done due to the health concern). You can request for them to test first before you proceed with an asbestos abatement. With the age of your house, if there is any linoleum that dates back to the time it was built, it may also contain asbestos. The same goes for "popcorn ceilings". In any case, please use an accredited contractor - asbestos removal is not something you want done by someone not certified. https://www.epa.gov/asbestos/protect-your-family#professionals
After the abatement, you will need to contract with an HVAC contractor to install new boots and duct work. The benefit of this is that you will likely end up with more adequately sized ducts with better insulation. I believe there are various rebates for improved ducting.
Good luck!
When I had new flooring installed, I had to have the old flooring tested for asbestos. I used Asbestos TEM Labs in Berkeley (http://www.asbestostemlabs.com/). I don't know anything about the specifics of duct testing, but they should be able to help.