Asbestos Products

Machine Room Ducts

Machine rooms can be found in most large industrial buildings and factories in which large machines are housed and used to manufacture, modify, or otherwise produce consumer materials and products. Across the country, millions of American citizens are employed as machine technicians in machine rooms, where they work diligently each day to provide for their family or loved ones. While many employers take every necessary precaution to keep an appreciated staff safe and secure, there still remain thousands of industrial operations in the United States that do not take such vital precautions. Many of the spaces in which these hardworking employees spend their day are supplied with heat, air conditioning, and filtered air with machine room ducts. These ducts are typically part of an HVAC network that works to keep air within a workspace comfortable and fresh, drawing out stale air and adding fresh air. However, some such machine room ducts are not the boon they seem; sometimes, machine room ducts may contain a material that makes them a detriment to the workers to which they are meant to supply fresh air.

Across the nation, thousands of factories and other seats of industry house machine room ducts that contain asbestos. For many years, from the early part of the last century to the last decade or so, asbestos was used to insulate machine room ducts and other systems for temperature treatment and air delivery. The evidence -- in the form of countless machine rooms that still harbor asbestos -- points to the previous popularity of the harmful material. Asbestos is cheap, durable, lightweight, and is poor conductor of heat, giving it remarkable insulating properties. Thankfully, after many years of widespread use and thriving business for the asbestos industry, the ugly truth finally came out, when in the 1970s researchers and scientists told the media and public the dangers of exposure to asbestos.

By this time, for many, it was already too late. Workers who were employed in machine rooms across the country and fed treated air through HVAC machine room ducts had begun to develop serious diseases. The number of ill machine room workers was staggering -- far higher than the percentage in any random sample of the general population. What was done about it? Many of the ill workers and their families filed claims against their employers and the manufacturers of asbestos insulations and products, but many of the factories continued to use machine room ducts that contain asbestos. To this day, countless factories and workplaces across the country use machine room ducts that are still insulated with asbestos.

What does this mean for the machine room employee? Hard as you work for your employer, as much as you do for your company, it is possible that you are being carelessly exposed to the harmful effects of asbestos. Asbestos causes a slew of illnesses, including mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, and other life-threatening diseases. These diseases can kill. What's worse, mesothelioma and other asbestos-related illnesses may take many decades before they become observable, meaning that the worker exposed to asbestos-containing machine room ducts may be unaware of this exposure and illness for many years. For the safety of you and your family, you must err of the side of caution. If you suspect that the machine room ducts in your workplace contain asbestos, please contact an experienced attorney who can represent your rights. An attorney who is familiar with asbestos-related claims can make sure that justice is served.

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