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Asbestos Removal & Testing
Asbestos is a dangerous mineral that used to be mined in many countries, and was widely used in construction because of its strength and fireproofing capabilities. Now, it is banned in more than a third of the world’s countries.
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While the United States has yet to ban the mineral, it is one of the only world powers without a ban. Nonetheless, its uses are restricted, and removing it from a home or building is not an act likely to be undone anytime soon. The restrictions began when asbestos’s dangers were first announced in the late 1970s. Maddeningly, they were known of before that, but for economic reasons, were kept a secret. The general public was not made aware of the dangers, but a few people discovered them for themselves, and in keeping it secret, effectively killed thousands of people.
What are these dangers? Asbestos is a carcinogen, and is a cause for many diseases, cancerous and otherwise. Mesothelioma is one disease, a cancer, that is decisively linked to asbestos.
Asbestosis is not a cancer, but is also caused by asbestos. Scarily, most asbestos-caused diseases have latency periods of decades, meaning people can’t know to stop exposure until it’s too late. The safest thing to do is avoid any and all exposure. That requires knowing if you are being exposed (an asbestos test), and then removing asbestos to avoid exposure. What ages of buildings are likely to contain asbestos? This is a tricky question. For example, in 1977, asbestos-containing popcorn ceilings were banned. Still, that isn’t a concrete number, even though it seems like it should be. Contractors were allowed to continue making the ceilings with asbestos until the supply ran out. That supply took a very long time to run out.
Unless your house is really new, the best bet with popcorn ceilings is to simply test them for asbestos. Lead is a metal that, like asbestos, used to be widely used in construction. Lead poisoning affects children the most, sometimes delaying development. We offer lead testing and removal.