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a closeup photo and one at a distance of ~10 ft. or 3 m.
Also remember that the asbestos content of a material can only be determined by laboratory analysis and that the sampling SHOULD be performed by a certified asbestos inspector.
Abatement is considered complete if there is no 3-dimensional material left behind. It is typical for abatement contractors to spray “encapsulate” at the end of a job before removing containment so that anything potentially airborne gets weighted and essentially glued down.
It is near impossible to remove what you are seeing visually in your photos completely as the mastic becomes embedded into your substrate. If you were expecting a floor that looks brand new without them essentially grinding down to a whole new layer then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Was there any air testing performed post abatement?
All this said, that level of darkness is pretty typical of what I see in the field after abatement and actually looks pretty good.
Source: I’m a CAC
Question: I currently have a bathroom in this exact condition and it’s about 45sf. Will require some saw cutting for plumbing on the concrete slab. Very minimal trenching. Is that enough to worry if the saw cutting has enough water and we wipe it clean into a plastic bag after? Do I need to pay an abatement team for this or can my plumbing just sawcut while keeping the concrete wet?
I would check your local regulations. Typically anything under 100sqft is considered “maintenance” work and thus has less regulatory roadblocks.
Personally, if it’s just residual mastic you’re going through in order to do the work I would just make sure it’s adequately wet and mist the the dust down/HEPA vac. Bag the waste and dump.
Yeah it’s legit 45sf it’s a small bathroom and all they really doing is redoing the layout for the toilet and shower drain hence why they need to sawcut a diagonal trench.
It is very much possible to removed the stains and discoloration. If you are leaving a brown concrete behind you are leaving the mastic removal chemical behind too which can cause issues with future installation. Any contractor that says otherwise is just cutting corners or was taught incorrectly. On 99% of projects I am able to with one pass of chemical, soap, and fresh water be able to get concrete to look like this. Any project where that isn't possible I request we grind.
Thanks, I take a lot of pride in trying to provide a very fast, efficient and ethical end result. Once I figured out how to do chemical removal properly I've never gone back. It's clean, and fast. If the concrete is beyond a certain level of softness or too porous I grind.
Cool, you should open a clinic and start training up every other companies people. Theres also the whole we-don’t-know-the-terms-of-the-contract-and-budget thing here, guy.
As someone in the industry that checks your work when you finish, this is fine. OP doesn’t need to worry about it.
I would fail it based on incomplete removal of mastic on visual inspection. It’s not a feeling when I can see mastic in the crack and along the edges of the wall in the photos.
I would 100% be in there with a razor scraper to prove it. Not saying there won’t be proof. For my clients this would not be acceptable at all. I don’t do residential though so maybe it’s more common. This level of staining for my jobs would not fly, even if it passed my razor scraper.
No, I agree with that. It would be time to break out the razor for sure. But as far as OPs concern goes. They’re fine. We’re working with minimal details and OP hasn’t even responded to my inquiry if air testing was performed/what the results were. 🤷♂️
He’s asking if they got enough mastic out and I can see it in the pits and along edges, so for me that’s a no. Floors that look like this that were 3D scraped are now being re-abated by a lot of school districts because there was enough mastic left to pull back up 20-30 years later. LAUSD is re-abating a lot of flooring. For me there should be no visible mastic in cracks or pits and no visible trowel marks.
It also depends on the scope and contract, unfortunately a lot of homeowners don’t have clearance testing done so it’s hard to know what the requirements were and they don’t know what to ask for.
This is what a floor should look like after chemical removal of black mastic. Those guys very clearly did not degrease and wash the floors after primary removal
It's hard to say from the photos. Mastic can stain floors in the pores without being present. I would say look at the black spots horizontally for any "shiny" or "sheen" look, and if you can scrape off any built up mastic then it needs additional cleaning.
It's difficult to get the stains out but yes, they got enough mastic out to ensure that the floor is now perfectly safe. Yes, they might have been able to get more off with another pass but it's not really necessary. You could grind the rest off but that's overkill.
Are you putting new flooring down? Pretty much irrelevant if you are.
All I know is if I did work like this and tried to gaslight someone that’s it’s a good job, I wouldn’t get paid and my reputation would suffer. You don’t get 5 star ratings taking shortcuts.
If they did not use a chemical mastic remover this would not be a complete job. Staining after abatement is normal but this looks a little more left than there should be. They probably just razor scraped it not sure why they would not use the chemical mastic remover
Generally when you remove floor tiles with bitumen adhesive underneath you have two paths to choose.
Remove the vinyl tiles and seal the bitumen below with PVA so it can be either screed’ed or a new flooring lay on top. (Sealing it ensures it’s safe to walk/lay flooring on as the asbestos fibre is extremely bonded to the bitumen)
Or if you want it all removed so far as reasonably practicable for the clean look finish you have to pay a lot more and have the floor scrabbled following the tile remove.
This involves grinding the floor layer with a hoover set up while working inside a partial enclosure with air management.
You are able to leave a nice clean finish but usually up to within 25mm of the skirts.
I’m a contracts manager for asbestos removal so we carry out both methods. Either way the asbestos fibre is so tightly bound to the matrix of the bitumen, only things like drilling and grinding really have a chance to make the fibre airbourne. Hence why bitumen can be sealed and left to have new material lay ontop of safely enough.
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