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a friend of mine and i are about to buy a house in portland maine..the first floor will be our office, the rest we’ll rent. the outside trim is very plain and i am planning to dress it up a bit..i’d really like to remove the siding and clapboard it but am concerned about any laws there may be about removing asbestos siding…any feedback????
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Check with the building inspector. Each area has its own requirements for discarding such.
Containment of the particles is whats critical with this kind of work. Since your issue is outdoors, you have a significantly greater chance of particles becoming airborne than if you were removing something from the inside.
And dont let the initial thoughts you may be about to receive, bother you. I was frantic before I found out that sometimes, for small areas, a respirator and some hot water and plastic bags was all I needed.
Check with your building department first.
Hope this helps.
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why bother? Cement siding ( contains less that 3% asbestos!!) holds paint very well. For what you would pay in Maine to have it removed and disposed of, paint it and buy a nice car!
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Ainsley: The thread, "Cottage cheese ceilings with asbestos" has some revelent thoughts. -David
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Ainsley,
You got some great responses already. I think you could also consider just removing it and putting it in heavy plastic bags and feeding it to the trash. It will remain very inert in a landfill. It's only the dust that is harmful and on that note, you can take the attitude that it will well disperse, or that your neighbor's kids could end up breathing it. You might just want to pay for an expensive abatement company to do the job right. Your choice.
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To expand on what gary wrote, Alan mentioned hot water. The advice usually given to homeowners is to wet down the siding to prevent airborne particles when tearing the siding off.
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I'd like to add a couple of thoughts about removing asbestos siding. The tiles I've seen are large, and typically held on by two or three nails. I've got two stories of asbestos siding removal to relate.
Let's start with the "professional asbestos abatement company". After a nearby house burned, the city hired this company to remove the asbestos siding before the house was knocked down. The guys showed up, put on the tyvek suits, didn't put on the hood of the suit, didn't wear respirators, or gloves. They lined the ground around the house and the inside of a 30 yard dumpster with plastic sheeting, then proceeded to pry the siding off of the house, allowing it to crash to the ground and splinter. The following morning (Saturday) they had a few high school students with them, with ABSOLUTELY NO protective clothing or gloves, and they proceeded to pick up the schrapnel and place it in very expensive looking tyvek bags which they tied closed and stacked in the dumpster.
The second scenario is one of a homeowner starting at the bottom row of shingles, removing the 3 nails, and carefully sliding the dampened, undamaged tile out from under the row above, while wearing gloves and NIOSH rated respirator. There's a nail removal tool (tough to describe, but I'll post later if anyone is interested) that works GREAT for this method, especially when you consider that when you remove one row, you can then push in the row above that was lapped over the lower row, which exposes the nail head and makes it very easy to remove.
I guess what I'm trying to convey is that a bit of common sense can go a long way, and just because someone is a licensed professional doesn't mean they will do a better job, even though "code" requires that they do the job.
Again, as stated previously, your local disposal codes will dictate wether you can attempt it, or if you need to call the "pros".
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Winzlo,
Nicely told story. What you have to do is, while the "pros" are eating lunch, casually walk by and say you saw OSHA was looking at a crew working on the (add your own local name) Bank Building when you were just downtown. Watch the hoods go back on.
By the way, in a former life I had to wear full MOPP gear (military chemical protective clothing and gas mask) while training in a tropical environment. I think I was somewhat less than 50% effective within half an hour.
*I wouldn't even worry for half a second about pulling that off dry! The only protective equipment you need are a respirator and a shower when you are done. The only reason I even recommend a respirator is so the dust that has blown in behind the siding for the last 20 years won't choke you to death. You only need the shower if personal appearance concerns you. Wear gloves if you are concerened about cuts. You couldn't cause asbestosis with a one time exposure if you tried! A co-worker with similar concerns found a study on the web (search for asbestos) that has studied this phenomenon for the past few years. He is not here today, I can repost later. The jist of the story is that we as a country spent 65 million dollars last year to contain dust that would have become airborne from remedial work. If all of that dust had become airborne, it would have raised ambient asbestos levels (in the country) to such levels that two additional people would have gotten asbestosis due to hypersensitivity in the course of their lives!! Two people, 65 million dollars!!This is more than a passing interest as I worked for an employer who had quite an amazingly bogus lawsuit going over a roof tearoff. We got sued basically because we BURIED it in a private landfill as opposed to an approved facility. Environmental wacko group claimed it had contaminated the groundwater! (The nearby paint cans and crushed drums apparently were in no way connected to deep pockets.) When local woman accosted me at McD's at lunch time I told her if she had a piece I would eat it for her!! She was dumbfounded.Our local dump takes it without any pretense of disguising it. But then again, I am bringing it in cans, not a roll-off.I hate to quote Rush Limbaugh but you need to follow the money. The people that make money on this (and Freon) are insurance companies, lawyers, and politicians. In that order. These people can create their own self-serving problems to solve with government spending, laws, and lawsuits.Sorry for ranting.-Rob
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I would just install vinyl siding over it. It will look much better than the asbestos shingles, and will be low maintenance. I am not a big vinyl siding fan at all, but this is an investment/commercial property after all. My sister-in-law lives in a house on Munjoy Hill with the same issue. This is some ugly siding!
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a friend of mine and i are about to buy a house in portland maine..the first floor will be our office, the rest we'll rent. the outside trim is very plain and i am planning to dress it up a bit..i'd really like to remove the siding and clapboard it but am concerned about any laws there may be about removing asbestos siding...any feedback????
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Ainsley,
First thought I have of this asbestos siding is the memories of Dad sending me up on the ladder and scaffold to tear it off of the house i grew up in, with nothing more than a hammer. It was a lot of fun ripping off but always less funn cleaning up the mess.
Nowadays asbestos is a big scare business but nonetheless, asbestos siding is considered non-friable, basically meaning that it is not easily turned to dust by crumbling. Something like asbestos tape around heat vents would be considered friable. Therefore your risk is rather minimal with a non-friable product. Although with so many crazed EPA regulations you may find it hard to dispose of in large quantities such as truck or dumpster loads. Usually you can legally cover it with siding. You might consider putting it into boxes and setting it on the curb a little at a time for the next month or two. Sometimes an extra twenty bucks or a twelve pack will coax the local garbage men into hauling it off for you in one lump sum. Unless you grind up a few shingles and snort it through a straw, I don't see any dangers in you removing this from your home/building.
Longing for the old days,
Pete Draganic