Do you have asbestos product in your house? Check its presence now! You might have some trouble in the future if you decide to keep it. When the asbestos product is still in good condition, it will never give you harm. But you will never know exactly when the product can get weathered.
Now you are probably wondering about how to know that you have an asbestos product in your building. You can not see it with naked eyes. You can only check it through sampling and testing. Last but not least, you must do the inspection safely and legally. That is why you need asbestos testing Perth (asbestoswatchperth.com.au) services.
If you have no clue at all where you can find asbestos in your building, try to look at the list below. Here are some of the products and where you may have to test for asbestos:
- Asbestos cement products (found in drain pipes, garage roofs and walls or shed, soffits and partitions).
- Floor tiles, composites and textiles.
- Textured coatings.
- Walls and beams/columns.
- Sprayed coatings on ceilings
- Lagging
- Asbestos insulating board.
- Loose asbestos in floor or ceiling cavity.
- Guttering
- Water cisterns and pipes.
Now taking samples and testing them must be done in the most secure manner. You are strictly prohibited to use these equipment:
- Stone
- Mortar
- Brick or breeze-block.
- Metal
- Concrete
- Wood
- Glass
To know about asbestos presence, you must first know about your building’s information. Try to figure out these things when you want to check asbestos product in your house:
- Talk to the previous owners of the building.
- Talk to the facilities management company.
- Find for any records of previous asbestos service on the building.
- Check all the equipment suppliers or repairers.
- Contact the building architect, designer or builder.
It is hard to take a sample by yourself without causing any contamination across the room. You must do it safely by following the applicable regulations and procedures. It is much safer to take the naturally broken off asbestos product than break a piece off to be sent for sampling.
An asbestos testing work will be consisted of these following steps if there is no risk of spreading debris or dust exposure:
- Dampen the sample.
- Place it in a self-sealing thick plastic bag.
- Put this in a second self-sealing thick plastic bag.
- Put on a label.
- Make arrangements for analysis by a NATA accredited asbestos-testing laboratory.
If the tests show that the asbestos products are existed, you must then conduct a removal work, especially when the products are in bad conditions. However, when they are still in good conditions, you can simply:
- Give the information on condition and location is recorded and kept them up to date.
- Tell everyone who needs to know about the asbestos, e.g. people in the building, contractors, maintenance workers.
- Put on asbestos warning sign or some other warning system (for example colour coding) for every contaminated material.
- Give a thorough instruction to those who might work on the material. This is so they know which material contains or may contain asbestos, before they start the work. You should agree on the precautions necessary to prevent exposure.
You must always seek advice and more information before thinking about removing any asbestos product in your building. You also need to follow the basic rules of applicable regulation when carrying out asbestos product removal work.
Do not even try to remove asbestos spray coatings, lagging, large areas of insulation board or any other kinds of friable asbestos product by yourself. These products can only be removed by a licensed removalist. A licence is needed if workers must spend more than two hours in total for the removal work. This includes all of the times spent for setting up, cleaning and clearing up.
Therefore, if you damage or uncover products that may contain asbestos, you must always follow the safety guidance:
- Stop work immediately.
- Minimise further contamination to other possible areas in the building.
- Clean up the contamination.
- Keep exposures as low as you can.
- Don’t sweep up dust or debris.