Very scared and frustrated

[Art]

Lots of people use the term linoleum incorrectly and are referring to much more popular floor covering containing asbestos.

[digitalmaster]

insulators who installed and replaced pipe insulation got messed up by it too.

[Salmon Egg]

Is there a sentence there?

-- Ferme le Bush

[Don Hard]

You have bo choice now. You must burn the house and everything inside. Then take a gun and commit suicide and kill everyone else that has ever entered that house.

[mm]

I wouldn't paint or tile. I would wash off the surfaces, or dust with a damp rag or something that would use static to hold the dust in place. I might wear an asbestos effective dust mask when doing this, and send the kid somewhere else. Then I'd open the windows, put input and output fans in them, at opposite ends of the house, and vent the house while I went shopping, or to work. It will float around, little will find anyone else because there is almost none left in the house alreadyd, and be washed into the ground by the rain.

I wonder if a toy microscope is enough to examine a filter and see if there is any asbestos on it. If not, maybe one could borrow a microcope or buy one at a pawn shop, and sell it for not much loss. But I don't think this is necessary at all. Just for the compulsive or curious.

[mm]

I believe that. It might be compared to the guano miners of Chile, who do or did go blind after a few years**. Yet millions of people walk by pigion doodoo on the sidewalk all the time without going blind.

**Yet took/take the jobs anyhow, knowing they would probably? go blind, because they needed the money.

[mm]

Yes, I think the standard name around Baltimore is "vinyl linoleum". It didnt' take me long to learn that the word linoleum there only means that it comes in wide sheets, unlike vinyl tile that comes in

12" or 9" squares.

However I don't think vinyl anything contains asbestos anymore. When did the OP's floor go in.

There used to be something called asbestos tile, and I'm pretty sure that contained asbestos.

[Sev]

It's one of those subjects that brings out the crank in all of us- from excessively anxious to overly dismissive- just have to keep it in proportion as best as we can.

[Salmon Egg]

No. It has to be a decent mineralogical microscope that measures certain optical characteristics of the fiber with polarized light.

Bill

-- Ferme le Bush

[Salmon Egg]

Okay, you hooked me. Why did they go blind? Do you have any reference for that?

Bill

-- Ferme le Bush

[mm]

Because of stuff in the guano. I don't know what stuff.

My brother. He's 7 years older than I and never wrong. :)

He told me this 30 or 40 years ago. It's almost 5AM. If I can, tomorrow I'll look for a second source.

[John]

The asbestos scare has gone way out of proportion. If your house is in your opinion "contaminated" but you can't see it (there are no piles of asbestos lying about) you will probably inhale just as much fibers as you would be on a normal sunny day in traffic!

But if you are still worried now is the time to quit smoking. Most people are worried about lung cancer and not asbestosis which is more directly related to asbestos. But to get asbestosis you'd have to inhale it on a regular basis for years and years. But getting back to lung cancer ... the current thinking on how asbestos fibers could cause cancer is this: the smallest asbestos fibers are so small that they may puncture cell walls without destoying the them. While asbestos itself does not contain carcinogens particles from smoking does. And if that stuff is near the punctured cell carcinogens may enter the cell and cause a mutation and cancer.

[J. Clarke]

FWIW, I grew up in a house with asbestos shingles. Never did me any harm. My mother worked for Johns-Manville, the asbestos king, in offices which were decorated almost entirely in asbestos--asbestos wallpaper, asbestos desks, asbestos upholstery, showcases for the stuff--she lived into her late '80s and as far as I know asbestos has not been associated with pancreatic cancer.

On the other hand, I'd be very surprised if there were still any asbestos brake pads in service.

Unfortunately the national pastime seems to be scaring ourselves to death.

[CAS]

If they tested a few locations in the house (not just the work area), there's your answer. You don't have an asbestos problem in your house. The test I'm thinking of involves a leaf blower and air sample collection. It stirs up any dust. If they did something radically different, maybe you can describe it?

The suggestions to paint and tile aren't helpful here. They might make sense if you were trying to cover/encapsulate materials containing asbestos, but they don't make sense since what you're worrying about is asbestos particles that may be loose in your house.

Dust removal is a good idea. Wet mopping, dusting with a damp cloth, etc, all remove dust, including any possible asbestos particles that might have settled. Vacuuming stirs up dust (especially without a HEPA filter, but even with one to some extent) and is not a good idea if you're trying to reduce an asbestos contamination problem. Since the abatement company didn't detect anything above ambient, I don't see any problem with cleaning your house however you want, including vacuuming.

[Sacramento Dave]

You watch to much Media, you over reacting. Most people that get Asbestoses (sp) have worked around it before the dangers were known. I will bet your wearing one of those paper dust mask. Why do so many people love dome? Look at the bright side of things. Hell the Vacuum guys are probably still laughing. Maybe Prozac is the answer

[Glen]

He is correct - there was a Tile, much like todays vinyl self adhesive tiles that were put down, extremely durable and usually used for commercial use. They did contain asbestos!

To the best of my knowledge, it was never used in sheet vinyl type flooring materials, just in the tiles.

As for asbestos in the home, the potential harm comes from the particles floating in the air and being breathed into the lungs and getting stuck there. This only happens while it is being disturbed.

Once the asbestos was cleaned out by the abatement company, and then followed by a HEPA cleaning of the home, there should not be anything more than the equivalent of standard dusts in the home. Relax, you and your family will be just fine..... you found a problem, you've solved the problem, now, sit back relax and enjoy your home and family...!

Glen

[Chris Lewis]

According to uz :

We've seen this happen to a friend of ours. Vermiculite insulation...

However much everyone (including your husband ;-) tells you that asbestos isn't a big deal, and that cleaning the house with HEPA has eliminated any possible hazard, and that you should just relax, simply doesn't make the anxiety go away. Does it?

It's because you can't see it, and you're not sure.

I can understand that feeling (fortunately I'm not prone to it).

Here's how you stop that feeling:

Call a lab (look in the yellow papers under Asbestos abatement or such like), and have them do an air test.

They'll install a couple of small filters in the house that will collect whatever's in the air for the next couple of months. Then, they analyze what's on the filter. It'll cost anywhere from $40-$120.

When they come back to you with a report that says "zero", you'll feel much better.

If it says anything other than zero, you could get it retested by _another_ company.

If you end up with a reading _other_ than zero (which I HIGHLY doubt from your description), call an asbestos _consultant_ (_not_ a removal contractor) and have them review the test results. That might not cost very much at all (they might be willing to answer you over the phone based on the test numbers). And they'll tell you that there's no problem.

That's what our friend did. She's not worried about it any more.

[She was getting zeros from air tests. The consultant said "you don't have a problem". But, the first vermiculite test said "trace" (meaning somewhere between barely detectable and 2-3%), and that scared her. The second, more accurate, asbestos test of the vermiculite (done by another company) showed it was

[Goedjn]

That's really easy to identify. If you have tile that looks like vinyl, but it throws sparks when you try to drill through it with a hole-saw, it's probably VAT.

[dadiOH]

I know. Point is, they weren't linoleum.

[charles381]

Unless you want to tear your home down and start over....relax! Keep it clean, keep the duct work cleaned,and keep your furnace filters changed. A good air purifier would be a nice touch(sharper image).

Relax and enjoy your life, it goes by too quickly.

charles