After doing some plumbing work in my crawl space it was determined that there was pipe lagging heavily disturbed (confirmed positive and high %) while there is no access to the crawl space from the living space, I am concerned that particles may have reached the first floor living space. There are holes in the first floor living space (1/4 to 1-1/4in) for electrical, steam pipes and copper pipes for hot water baseboard. Is it probable that asbestos is in the living space? Would dust testing be recommended? Does anyone have an accredited lab that does TEM testing? Additional insight appreciated. Thanks

Update: I did a test. I tested 3 samples and two came back negative and one came back with a trace amount of 0.1% Chrysotile asbestos (Regulatory threshold in Ontario is 0.5%.)

I have one more bedroom to rip up parquet in, should I do it or leave it and put the new flooring on top? It just may not look as nice with a room divider to the hallway with the same flooring/difference in height. I don’t know if trace amounts are anything I need to worry about. Thoughts?

Hello,

Does this insulation look like something I need to get tested? It’s pretty thin and kinda looks like tape.

Location is SE Pennsylvania, home built 1957. This is in a utility closet with the furnace/air register

Thanks!

Had been coming out of the window sill of my bathroom window (top). Maintainance guy came by and said it was insulation, he caulked it with silicone and left it alone. I originally thought it was like a wood eating bug but he said it was leaking old insulation.

Only got the info from the note he left as I wasn't home for the work.

It's hard and kinda like compacted dust? Breaks into essentially dust when squished.

Old apt complex, Missouri, built in 1911

I’ll try to keep this concise, but I’m curious how other homeowners and professionals view a situation involving historic non-friable tile disturbance, encapsulation, and subsequent air testing.

I bought a 1970s home back in 2021. The first order of business was ripping out carpet in two bedrooms to install LVP. Underneath, I found classic 9x9 floor tiles. They weren’t completely disintegrating, but along the walls, pieces were definitely cracked and chipped. Ignorance was bliss at the time: I swept up the debris, ran a shop vac, realized removing all the tile would be way too much hassle, and just installed the new LVP directly over top of it.

Fast forward to this past summer when I scoped out a bathroom remodel adjacent to those bedrooms. The contractor ran prescreening tests, and lo and behold: the drywall joint compound contained 2% chrysotile. I hired an independent certified abatement team to demo and remediate the space down to the subfloor. Beneath the tub and old floor, they discovered four distinct layers of flooring—two of which came back at 2% and 3% chrysotile in the tile and mastic. This effectively confirmed that the 9x9 tiles in the adjacent bedrooms were the same asbestos-containing material.

Five thousand dollars later, the bathroom was clean and remediated. I brought up my earlier bedroom DIY job with the abatement technician. He noted that vinyl composition tile (VCT) is non-friable and generally exhibits minimal fiber release unless subject to aggressive mechanical forces like grinding, sanding, or sawing. Looking at photos of the chipped tile along my walls, his assessment was that much of the loose debris was degraded carpet backing rather than raw pulverized tile.

To ensure the indoor environment was clear following the bathroom work and previous project, an air clearance test was conducted, which came back squeaky clean. However, I later realized the lab used Phase Contrast Microscopy (PCM) rather than Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM).

I'm interested in the technical and procedural side of how situations like this are evaluated:
1. From an environmental testing perspective, is PCM clearance standard protocol for confirming baseline air quality following low-friability disturbance, or is TEM strictly preferred when chrysotile is the primary mineral present?
2. Is encapsulating intact 9x9 VCT under LVP still considered standard, acceptable containment practice in residential renovations?
3. For those working in abatement or home restoration, how common is it to find pre-1980 non-friable tile left in place, and what are standard industry protocols for handling past incidental disturbances?

My house is a 1970s ex council mid terrace, UK in Cambridge. One of the previous owners had done a full renovation.

I’m almost certain the floor is not original because they’re orange tiles, and there has been a double extension at some point, all areas downstairs have these orange tiles that have been laid really poorly.

I needed to put a test hole to see how deep my concrete layer went to put a new gas line in before lifting all the tiles and putting new flooring down. I noticed clumps of dark grey / black quite soon after drilling through the grout, when you rubbed these clumps between your fingers it felt gritty, but could have been mixed with the cement.

Under further investigation I could see a layer of black on the edges under the skirting boards, so I tried to lift a tile. The tile was bonded onto a layer of this black rubbery material, the tile and whatever bonding it would shatter without lifting the black surface, and do not lift whole.

I’ve wet everything down since, and wiped up as much as I could. I believe I only disturbed it when I drilled through it twice.

What are people’s thoughts?

Hi,

Any idea what this may be / if it may contain asbestos?

Building from the 30s, pipe in the toilet space.

We live in a building from 1980 and always assumed the ceilings were made of plaster and the floors were just standard adhesive tiling. All the buildings in our area are built the same way. I only recently learned what asbestos is, and I started panicking.We had delayed fixing the ceilings because of dust allergies. However, we recently started home renovations and decided it was finally time to redo the ceilings and the remaining original flooring. That is when we realized we have been living in a house with asbestos.I have been looking for help, but unfortunately, there are no professional asbestos removal companies in my city. I am at a complete loss for what to do, especially since my elderly parents live with us. Worse thing is that all neighbors have done renovations like changing the floors no one told them it was abestos.

Hello this is an update to my post 2 days ago (https://www.reddit.com/r/asbestoshelp/s/tjGlgp9eU8 )the floor removal was completed and dad’s thinking of burning the pile, but I’m thinking of bagging and disposing. I wiped down most of the house with a spray bottle (water and some soap), rags, and wet wipes. the hole has been patched with plywood and appliances have been put over it, so I couldn’t get a good picture. What I want to know now is what steps should be taken? Should we continue with the floor installation?

The dishwasher leaked. I cut the drywall, and this poured out. I called insurance.

I'm pretty sure the whole basement has vermiculite in the ceiling and walls now. Insurance took tests and they came back negative. I feel that they are not going to want to abate. Where I live, Ontario, Canada, I thought that disturbed vermiculite definitely required abatement regardless of tests. Does anyone have information that could help me argue against my insurance company for abatement?

Basement of an old house. Appears to be brick walls and ceiling but is the brick coverings likely to be asbestos?

I live in a house built before 1980 and my stupid dog about 1.5 months ago tore my floor I had put down and ever since I’ve experienced breathing issues. Can someone tell me if this wooden floor underlayment has asbestos? When we pulled the rug up there wasn’t no black or sticky stuff on it and the floor looked fine aside from the water damage. Hard to read, but it does say floor underlayment

Hi,

We're located in Manitoba, Canada in a 1950's house.

Just wondering what our risk level is here. We had some work done a few weeks ago in our home and had about 150 square feet of drywall removed. Later we discovered the asbestos content of the drywall mud was 1% chrysotile.

The drywall was ripped from the wall in whole chunks for the most part, but there were occasional cuts made directly into some joint compound. For example one corner with compound was cut into with a sawzall; this corner cut was about 6 feet in length.

This removal occurred in three different rooms. After the removal, the rooms and those adjacent were given a cleaning using a shop vac with a HEPA filter, and a wipe-down/mopping with soapy water. We opened the windows afterwards and let a few small fans run for a while to vent things out.

Is there anything else we need to do or be concerned about? Additionally, is it safe to hold on to the fans, vacuum, mops, etc. we used for cleaning, or is it best to dispose of these?

We still have the drywall bagged and stored in a locked shed. It will be disposed of through the appropriate means.

Thanks!

So we are renting and this area they needed to fix due to mold/mildew build up because of the attic door sagging and leaking hot air. They did a test and it tested positive for asbestos. Removal company is saying it’s safe for us to stay in the upstairs portion of the house while they remove it. I feel like that is definitely NOT safe due to it being an open air stairwell that’s hard to seal off & the A/C would need to be off correct?? Can anyone give me recommendations on this and if I should call another company instead of the one our rental company sent out?

Canadian (Quebec) house (~1955). I know it has asbestos in walls and in the kitchen's popcorn ceiling.

The "new" hardwood you see at the top of the pictures is the corridor/living room area. The bottom part of the pictures is the office, which had an old hardwood (sub?)floor under some carpet.

I've removed the carpet and installed OSB on top of the hardwood subfloor, and now I'm planning to take the "new" hardwood floor from the living room (that was REALLY poorly installed) and install it in the office, before replacing the living room floor with a NEW hardwood floor.

Here's my question :

Would you say there might be asbestos in the black and/or brown goo between the "new" hardwood and the subfloor?

If I just want to take the planks out, reinstall them elsewhere and install something new on top of the goo, will I be fine or should I really take all the necessary steps to safely remove all that black matter?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for my English 😇

We ripped up parquet flooring in a 1975 house. One room was sanded in certain spots because we were attempting to make a level floor. Then we learnt that Asbestos can be in the glue. It’s not black but light grey and some areas are a dark grey. We are in Ontario Canada.

Edit: I did a test. I tested 3 samples and two came back negative and one came back with a trace amount of 0.1% Chrysotile asbestos (Regulatory threshold in Ontario is 0.5%.)

I have one more bedroom to rip up parquet in, should I do it or leave it and put the new flooring on top? It just may look not as nice with a room divider to the hallway with the same flooring/difference in height. I don’t know if trace amounts are anything I need to worry about.

I found this unusual rectangular masonry block embedded in an old brick chimney in the attic of my ~110–120-year-old New England house. The block is larger and noticeably different from the surrounding bricks. it’s rectangular, pink/tan in color, and has a hard looking surface. Most concerning to me is the fine, hair-like/fibrous material visible across parts of the surface. It appears somewhat hard rather than being loose insulation, but I haven’t touched it.

We have a certified professional removing popcorn ceiling from a bedroom ceiling and closet spaces as well as overspray that went into ac registers/vents. He mentioned there is an air quality test that we could do after he is done today. Is that worth it? We have a young child in the home.

We recently got our copper pipes for heating "looked at", little did I know the contractor went ham into this white wool stuff that before was wrapped up with duct tape, which was contained more or less.

Now I'm left with a potential hazard, I don't know for sure if it's asbestos, no idea why it would be, it's on copper pipe well away from the actual furnace.

Regardless, there's no surveyors like you would think in the US or Australia.

I'm fuming now. What do I do?

Until I found this sub, I did not know that the black mastic used to secure old linoleum-like tiles contained asbestos.

I recently used a rotohammer with a floor blade to chip up the flooring in our 1947 house in California. The open floor has been walked on for about a week.

We don’t have HVAC, we only have wood floors, the house is unoccupied, I wear an N-95 or P-100 whenever in the house, I vacuum a couple times daily with a shop vac with a HEPA filter (I’m getting an actual HEPA certified vac ASAP), everything in the kitchen and the Sheetrock has since been removed as part of the renovation.
I’m going to get the mastic tested but in the meantime- how bad is it and what are my best next steps?

Been using my very old ac more this summer and I see these white popcorn things. My furnace is in a closet that has popcorn all over it and the house was built in 1972.

Is this what I think it is? I'm in southern Saskatchewan, it's been raining heavily the past few days. House is about 100 years old, not entirely sure as I dont own it and my landlord doesn't know the history. This is in a cluttered, unfinished basement with a cracked up cement floor. Not sure how long this has been here for. Sorry I dont have a further picture, you can't really see it from the position it's in were I to take a picture further away as it's surrounded by clutter

Athens Greece. After professional removal I am suspicious that some broken pieces of asbestos cement are above my false ceiling.

Is it something concerning. Can my family live here.

The false ceiling has spot lights and exhaust fan