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Asbestos: Where is it in my home?

The first question to ask is not "where" but "when." When was your house built? If it was after about 1978, you are probably asbestos-free and free of the sources most likely to release asbestos fibers into the air you breathe. If it was after 1986, you're almost certainly free, because asbestos was banned from most of the softer building materials by then and had simply been abandoned by a more aware building industry. There is still a slight chance that a prior owner of your home may have imported asbestos-containing materials, knowingly or not. It is still legal to bring in small quantities for personal use of even the six product groups specifically banned from US commercial use, manufacture, or import.

If, however, your house or anything on your property was made or built or even remodeled between 1920 and 1978, there is a very good chance you have "asbestos-containing materials," or ACMs. It was used in as many as 3600 different commercial products. A 1984 survey by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found dangerous asbestos in 42 of the agency's own 270 buildings. In 1988 the EPA found asbestos in at least 700,000 public and commercial buildings across the country, as many as half a million of those buildings with damaged (friable) and dangerous asbestos. It should be noted, though, that those were the building sectors where asbestos was used most heavily. Dangerous forms and concentrations of asbestos were somewhat less common in residential use.

The strongest chance of having asbestos in your house is from building or renovation work done in the 1950s and '60s. This is when asbestos looked like a modern marvel with piles of advantages and no acknowledged disadvantages. It was light, fireproof, strong, insulating, and mixed well with a number of other building materials to give them its miracle properties. The connection to health problems had not been made yet in public because the early asbestos workers were still incubating their cancers. As much as 800 thousand tons of asbestos were used each year in US at the peak in the 1970s. By 1983, asbestos usage was down to 217 thousand tons.

It is important to look for asbestos in general areas: from rooftop to basement, but not usually alone. It is in what are called legally "asbestos-containing materials" (ACM), which the US Environmental Protection Agency defines as something asbestos has deliberately been added to in amounts of more than one percent of the total material's weight or area. Let's start looking at the outside of your house:

  • asphalt roofing shingles (probably only about 1% asbestos) or roll roofing, and it is pretty well contained and stable. Chrysotile asbestos was first mixed with cement for roofing in Austria in 1901, and these products can still be legally made with asbestos, most often mixed with asphalt. In fact, the US Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that more than half of the asbestos used in 2007 in the US was for roofing materials, though the use in roofing felts has pretty much ended, probably because it is easier to release fibers into the air from felts than from other materials in the violence of ripping up an old roof.
  • roof patching cement
  • flexible, nonmetallic base flashing around roof protrusions such as vents
  • cement sidings -most commonly shingles, but also clapboards (12-15% asbestos)
    • Though there is no legal barrier, almost no one is putting new asbestos siding on their houses in the US today.
  • sand made from crushed rock (as opposed to beach sand) is suspect for the very dangerous asbestos mineral tremolite.

Of course, inside uses of asbestos raise the greatest general concerns for homeowners, if the fibers get released inside they contaminate the family's living space. From the attic to basement, here is where to look:

  • loose or batt insulation sprayed or blown into walls and between rafters, shaken out of bags, or packed around ventilation ducts and boilers.
  • insulation board on walls (typically 30% asbestos)
  • pipe coverings - blanket-like or preformed around elbows and valves (50% asbestos), cardboard (35 to 90%), or tape (80%)These materials were also used for packing around holes where pipes, wires, ducts, and such penetrate walls and floors.
  • clay-based plumbing putty (20 to 100% asbestos)
  • flexible connections for ventilation ducts
  • fuse-box linings and insulation on electrical wires, in the electrical boxes behind wall switches and plugs, in recessed lighting, and in ceiling fixtures and the sockets of freestanding lamps
  • vinyl (21% asbestos) or asphalt (26 to 33%) floor tiles, sheet flooring (30%), and the mastic that holds them down (5 to 25%); paper "felt" used as underlayment or fused to the back of the vinyl; also mastic for carpet and ceiling tile
  • Rubber stair treads and risers
  • acoustical and decorative plasters for walls and ceilings (as much as 95% asbestos), even spackle (though it is more likely only 3 to 5% asbestos)These insulating treatments were especially popular in the 1950s and '60s. Estimates say that half the multistory buildings put up in the 1950s through the '70s have some kind of sprayed-on asbestos-containing material.
  • ceiling tiles and the panels that lie in suspended ceilings
  • caulking and putties, especially around places that are subject to high heat
  • millboard or "rollboard," two sheets of asbestos paper laminated together in a continuous, flexible sheet (80 to 85% asbestos) This product was particularly used in office partitions, enclosed decks and even exterior walls, garage paneling, linings for stoves and electrical boxes, and fireproofing for security boxes, safes, and file storage.
  • chalkboards
  • cement pipes (20% asbestos or more), such as sewer lines and water mains
  • "block insulation" - plaster (6 to 15% asbestos) encasing an old furnace installed as early as 1890, but most likely between 1930 and 1972, especially one that originally burned coal or wood Since these furnaces are mostly being replaced by now, disposing of the asbestos insulation is a definite cost to consider in buying an older home.
  • doors and gaskets on oil and coal furnaces and some wood stoves
  • insulation on heating ducts
  • tape and insulation sealing hot-air registers Even older appliances such as washers and dryers used it. It was in hair dryers until they were recalled by the Consumer Products Safety Commission in 1979.
  • laboratory and range hoods
  • in-cabinet ovens and dishwashers installed up to the mid-1970s
  • small appliances such as portable dishwashers, toasters, clothes dryers, popcorn poppers, broilers, electric blankets, and slow cookers Almost anything that works with heat has had parts made with asbestos-containing materials. The heating coils in space heaters and hair dryers made before 1979 may be wrapped in asbestos material and backed with asbestos insulation. Freezers and water heaters also used asbestos insulation inside their metal skins.
  • artificial ashes and embers in gas fireplaces and heaters; do not forget about barbecues on the patio or enclosed porch.
  • papers or cement sheets (20 to 50% asbestos) on the floors and walls around fireplaces, wood stoves, and boilers
  • vinyl wall coverings (6 to 8% asbestos)

Some of the most easily identified and disposed-of uses were asbestos fabrics were in curtains for stage and home (no fear of fire!), hot pads, gloves, and trivets for use in the kitchen, ironing-board covers, and protective clothing.

Every so often a new alarm is raised about a product being contaminated, especially when the asbestos is present as a contaminant of another mineral product, such as talc. In 2000, it was children's crayons, some of which used talc as a binding agent for the pigmented wax. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) tested several brands of crayons and indeed found trace amounts of asbestos in those that used talc. They also found, however, that the fibers were extremely well contained: Even when they scraped crayons over paper heavily for a solid half hour, there were no measurable fibers released into the air. Still, the crayon manufacturers affected agreed to eliminate talc from their products within a year. CPSC continues to monitor crayons for talc and the asbestos it may carry. Later in the same year, they also announced that they had found no asbestos or talc in children's chalk.

Check the "Material Safety Data Sheet" of anything you are buying that you think might contain asbestos. Ask your building-supply source for it.This information will also tell you how to handle asbestos-containing materials safely.

Although many of these products are perfectly legal to sell to consumers and contractors, there are also substitutes without asbestos available for all of them. Experts acknowledge that there is no single substitute - no other mineral, metal, organic, or synthetic product - as versatile as asbestos.

While new engineering techniques, such as nanotechnology, might promise the development of synthetics that could do what asbestos did. It is likely that a synthetic fiber with the same characteristics would also have the same drawbacks.

Asbestos can also come into the house in drinking water, from old piping and sealants in city systems, or even naturally occurring in the rock around your own well. Asbestos in water is considerably less dangerous than where it can be inhaled, but it is worth finding out. If the water is acidic, it is more likely to dissolve asbestos fibers from pipes and rocks. If you have municipal water and you are concerned, ask. Estimates in 1998 had five to ten percent of Americans still drinking water with notable levels of asbestos. The problem is well recognized and most towns have taken care of it. If you have your own well, make sure when you are testing for other contaminants you ask for testing for asbestos too.

In 1974, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act. This law requires the EPA to determine safe levels of chemicals in drinking water which do or may cause health problems. These non-enforceable levels, based on estimated health risks and exposure, are called Maximum Contaminant Level Goals since 1992 for asbestos seven million fibers per liter of water.

The EPA set an enforceable standard for asbestos, called a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL), at the same level. Between 1993 and 1995, EPA required your water supplier to collect water samples once and analyze them to find out if asbestos is present above the maximum goal. If so, the system must continue to monitor this contaminant once every three months. If contaminant levels are found to be consistently above the standard, your water supplier must take steps to reduce the amount of asbestos so that it is consistently below that level. The methods they can use include: Coagulation/filtration, direct and diatomite filtration, and corrosion control. Your water supplier will also have to alert you to the danger using newspapers, radio, and television.

From 1987 to 1993, according to the Toxics Release Inventory, asbestos releases to water and land totaled nearly nine million pounds. Less than 33 thousand pounds was released into water. These releases were primarily from industries that use asbestos in roofing materials, friction materials, and cement. The largest releases occurred in Pennsylvania (land only) and Louisiana (2.25 million lbs land, 61 lbs water). Texas released 1.73 million lbs, but all on land. Arkansas had perhaps the highest release into water, a thousand pounds, with more than a half million more pounds on land. Virginia was the state with the fifth highest total release, though only to land, at just under a half million pounds.

The use of asbestos in friction materials, such as brake pads for cars, trucks, and elevators, is likely behind a measurable difference in generally airborne asbestos fibers. This can be up to ten times as many fibers in urban as in rural settings. Even that urban density, near a steep hill or other area where drivers will be making especially heavy use of their brakes, is still far below the levels identified by regulatory authorities as dangerous. There is some evidence that the chrysotile asbestos used in brake pads is changed chemically by the heat of slamming on the brakes, so that the fibers that are released from automobile and truck brakes may be even less of a threat to health than they were when they were mixed into the matrix material.

On the other hand, if you do your own work on your car, a job as simple as replacing your brake pads can expose you to asbestos. The fibers shed as the pads wore down may be accumulated in recesses of the mechanism, ready for release when you open them up. It could be even worse if you work in your heated garage, attached to the house, using compressed air to clean out the brakes, and if you use your regular shop or home vacuum (without HEPA filtration) to clean up later. You do not want to blow the asbestos fibers, no matter how low the risk, into your family's living area. Be grateful for your professional mechanic's hazardous-waste charge.

Amazingly, asbestos was also used in papers for filtering beverages, other fluids, and in cooling towers for liquids from industrial processes and air-conditioning systems. These uses have ended.

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