Aspestos fake brick removing ????

[masterblaster]

How are ya guys.
we bought a house that has the fake brick on it - l want off but l can't afford to have it done.
l've read all the aspestos stuff here - really helpfull but l still can't make up my mind . Mine is clearly the white aspetos , l can see it in broken bits.
lt's on the house in 1.2mtr x 550ml sheet sections that pop of quite easy - but there would be dust no worries there it's all 30 yrs old so.
Someone mentioned in the other aspestos thread medically speaking you could sit beside the guy cutting it for a few mths breathing it in and even then it most likely wouldn't effect you . Others said they'd removed this or that - council regulations in Vic seem pretty carefree [ wise but carefree ].
Can anyone add anything more or do they know anything about the fake brick stuff and removal whatever feel free to add anything at all , you never know because l could take it of fairly easily myself but at the time l do have a 4 yr old and then wifey and myself as well so l don't wanna be stupid about it just because of money but it did seem the white aspestos was fairly safe with care so ,,,, damned if l know . ain't got the money l know that much.
Cheers.
jack

[Kev Y.]

Jack, Asbestos removal is usually best done by a professional mob, go see your local council fo rcontact details.

Apart from the hooded coveralls and face mask, the removed material has to be bound in thick black plastic the taken to an authorised disposal centre.

Thats as far as my information extends

[Tools]

You would not legally be allowed to strip the whole house yourself in Victoria.If you are not licenced,there is a limit on hoiw much you can remove.And if you did remove it yourself,you may not be able to get rid of it. Tools

[Eastie]

As per Tools comments, the regs in Vic are as follows:

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY (ASBESTOS) REGULATIONS 2003
207. Limited removal without licence permitted:

(1) An employer or self-employed person may conduct a limited amount of removal work if:
(a) the asbestos-containing material is non-friable; and
(b) the area to be removed is less than 10 square metres in total; and
(c) removal is not undertaken for more than 1 hour in any period of 7 days

(2) An employer or self-employed person undertaking removal work specified in sub-regulation (1) must comply with Part 8 (good luck if you're not licensed!)

Legally, I'm uncertain if this applies to homeowners as OHS regs apply to workplaces/employers, however this regulation is specifically linked to the Dangerous Goods Act which incorporates natural persons. Whatever the legal position, it makes damn good sense. The other law is the EPA Act, which they can thrown at you if you expose anyone else (neighbours) or the surrounding environment to risk from your removal activities, and this applies to everyone.

Anyhow, take a 20cent peice of the stuff to get tested by an asbestos consultant and take it from there, as the fibres may be something other than asbestos. You can then assess the risk of the job.

[maglite]

That sounds like a product called "decrabond"
It was generally fixed in the same way as fibro etc.

Are you sure that stuff is white asbetos and not fibro?
I think Hardies used to make it or if they didnt, they should know who did.... maybe you could shoot them an email and find out for sure either way.

Irregardless, what the other guys have said has a lot of merit and i would want to be very sure before i touched it myself.

Cheers
Steve

[masterblaster]

That sounds like a product called "decrabond"
It was generally fixed in the same way as fibro etc.

Are you sure that stuff is white asbetos and not fibro?
I think Hardies used to make it or if they didnt, they should know who did.... maybe you could shoot them an email and find out for sure either way.

Irregardless, what the other guys have said has a lot of merit and i would want to be very sure before i touched it myself.

Cheers
Steve

Thanks Steve good thinking will do .
And thanks to everyone elses tips and info here so far . Sounds like the fat lady ain't quite sung yet so l'll get it tested and look into thigs more before anything else .
Any one know more please don't hesitate to add.
Cheers.
Jack

[Trav]

G'day Jack

My granddad dies of mesophilioma (asbestosis) so I am a bit biased. We just bought a new house (built 1970) and were in the process of removing an old fireplace and came across some fibro stuff. Had it tested and sure enough it had while, blue and brown asbestos in it. It looked white - just like normal fibro - but it was full of the good gear. I had someone come in and remove it - it cost about $400 for say 3-4 square metres of fibro covered with tiles.

They spend most of the time tanking the room (cladding all doors, windows, carpet etc with black plastic) and they run a vacuum with a hepafilter to get rid of any dust. They finished by spraying the whole area with a water/PVA mix to lock down any last bits of fibre.

IMHO, $400 was money well spent. Some things just aren't worth skimping on mate. I know that it may be expensive, but look at the risk.

Trav

[KathyACT]

Hi Trav,
I am looking for asbestos removalist.
Do you still have the contact of the removalist?

Thanks
K

G'day Jack

My granddad dies of mesophilioma (asbestosis) so I am a bit biased. We just bought a new house (built 1970) and were in the process of removing an old fireplace and came across some fibro stuff. Had it tested and sure enough it had while, blue and brown asbestos in it. It looked white - just like normal fibro - but it was full of the good gear. I had someone come in and remove it - it cost about $400 for say 3-4 square metres of fibro covered with tiles.

They spend most of the time tanking the room (cladding all doors, windows, carpet etc with black plastic) and they run a vacuum with a hepafilter to get rid of any dust. They finished by spraying the whole area with a water/PVA mix to lock down any last bits of fibre.

IMHO, $400 was money well spent. Some things just aren't worth skimping on mate. I know that it may be expensive, but look at the risk.

Trav

[rsser]

Yellow Pages is your friend Kathy.

...

There is no safe level of exposure to asbestos (nor for wood dust btw). There are now guys who were kitted up to the standards of the 80s for removing the stuff who are copping mesothelioma, asbestosis or lung cancer.

The rate of asbestos-related disease among Witenoom workers is about one in seven. This will prob remain static since the average period for disease to emerge is around 25 years. But the stuff wasn't banned from brake linings til 2003, and there is of course masses of it still in and on buildings - as sheet, insulation and pipes.

It is the industrial epidemic par excellence; estimates are that 20,000 people or more in Australia will cop some kind of ARD.

[Toymaker Len]

Maybe you can leave the fake brick there and render over the top. That will seal the asbestos in and let you have the colour and texture of your choice on the outside.

[Bloss]

Hi Trav,
I am looking for asbestos removalist.
Do you still have the contact of the removalist?

Thanks
K

In ACT see:

http://www.asbestos.act.gov.au/

In the ACT, Queanbeyan and a few in Sth Coast NSW, there was some loose fill asbestos used as roof insulation in the 60s&70s. A government program in the ACT removed this and checked and certified all houses as asbestos insulation free. No govt program was carried out in NSW so there might well be houses with it still in the roof.

The above link tells you what the rules are in ACT and has plenty of other info too.

Unless you are doing renovations there is no reason to touch existing AC sheet that is painted and in good condition.

[Bloss]

Thanks Steve good thinking will do .
And thanks to everyone elses tips and info here so far . Sounds like the fat lady ain't quite sung yet so l'll get it tested and look into thigs more before anything else .
Any one know more please don't hesitate to add.
Cheers.
Jack

ALL fibro - Asbestos Cement (AC) - and any compressed AC sheet up until 1984 used asbestos and there would be some houses after then that would have asbestos sheeting in some form as old stocks might still have been used, especially by home owners.

It is certain that your faux bricks are on AC sheeting.

There would barely be a house in Australia built since the 30s up to the mid-80s that does not have asbestos sheeting in it somewhere - eave linings most commonly and also under tiles, behind wet areas, on floors as well as on rooves and walls as external cladding prior to the 80s.

The colour of the 'fibro' is not an indicator of the type of asbestos used - the asbestos (as cellulose is now) was used as a strengthener for the cement sheets because it was cheap and thought to be inert and had fibres that inter-layed every which way (like fibreglass matting does - used with resins to given them strength).

Asbestos cement sheeting (whether with a brick look or otherwise) is safe enough to handle so long as it is not broken or drilled or machined. Any dust on or near it must be treated as highly dangerous - it is the particles breathed in that cause the health problems.

So you could leave it in situ and cover it with another cladding. Just make sure that if you do the tradies all know it is asbestos and that any subsequent owners are made aware too.

If you do read up, get advice and decide to do some yourself you need to ensure your wnn safety with clothing and masks and the safety of any family or others who might be exposed to dust.

But I agree with what has been said - get expert advice then act on it. All states have pretty strict rules about who can do what and also about disposal. Not worth the risk.

[MrFixIt]

Hi

Maybe you can leave the fake brick there and render over the top. That will seal the asbestos in and let you have the colour and texture of your choice on the outside.

DON'T do this with REAL cement render as it will crack and deteriorate with a relatively unstable base (the faux bricks). I THINK it would be ok to use one of the "paint" type renders, though even that may ultimately show cracks.

[SilentButDeadly]

We are faced with fake bricks and there's no way it is staying on the house. And there's no way you could render it either - regardless of the product.

So it's coming off. Fortunately, Victoria is reasonably wise when it comes to the regs. The home owner can do the job and legally dispose of the asbestos in a licenced facility as long as they follow a few basic rules which are detailed here http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/waste/asbestos_disposal.asp and in this newly released pdf http://epanote2.epa.vic.gov.au/EPA/p...FILE/364.1.pdf

[billbeee]

So if you are thinking of doing it yourself, you could save some money, but you will have to put some effort into it. I will give you a run down on what I used to do when I had a license.

• Inform the authorities at least a week before commencing work, giving the extent of work and the method of removal.
• The whole thrust of the regulations is to SAFELY remove ALL the material.
• We used to go to a lot of pains cleaning up as much as we could around the work area, before starting to lay protective plastic.
• We would fix signs and barrier warning tape around the block.
• Inform neighbours what was going on.
• We always hired a skip or dumpster. Never used our own vehicle, even for small jobs.
• We lined the skip with two layers of 200um thick black poly plastic sheeting with plenty overhanging the sides to use for covering the top up.
• The whole floor of the work area and access to other areas not being worked in was sheeted with two layers of plastic. Each night the top layer was carefully rolled up with whatever dust it contained and put in the skip. A new layer was put down the following morning.
• Before going into the work area we put on disposable overalls, dust masks, hard hats, safety glasses, gloves and gum boots.
• If the job was a public building or school we would have to set up an air monitor, to measure the amount of asbestos dust in the air, this would be a check on us that we were following the right procedures.
• The only tools we used were hand tools, pry bars, hammers etc.
• The whole idea when removing the material was to do it in as large a piece as possible to minimise the creation of dust. To do this we punched the nails through the sheets with nail punches or cut around the nails with small wadding punches.
• The pieces were carried out carefully and placed, not thrown into the skip.
• All the time we were doing this one guy had a hose and was spraying us, the work, the skip, and the area in general with a fine mist of water.
• Smaller pieces were were swept up and placed in clear plastic bags with asbestos warning signs on them. These were placed in the skip.
• There was no carting the small stuff to the skip in wheelbarrows and shoveling it in. It was all bagged and placed into the skip.
• We sprayed the nail heads that were left behind in the timber, to seal the fibres under them with watered down PVA glue in a hand spray bottle.
• At the end of each day we rolled up the top layer of floor plastic and put it into the skip. We left our boots inside the work area, we dumped masks and overalls in the skip and coved the skip in plastic and sealed it. We put another layer of plastic down at the start of the next days work. Using fresh suits etc.
• A day before the job was finished I would ring up the dump (waste disposal facility) and tell them that we had a load of asbestos material.
• The dump manager would give me a time for delivery and he would have a hole dug out ready for burying the stuff.
• The skip was sealed and asbestos warning tape put around it. I would give the driver of the skip truck a letter to the effect that the load contained asbestos material, which he had to give to the dump manager.

I had a license that is typical for builders, that allowed me to work with FAC only. Not the far more dangerous types of asbestos, blue asbestos, found in pipe lagging etc.

This is a section I have lifted off my web page
http://www.builderbill-diy-help.com/asbestos.html

I don't want to be accused of spamming, but I have a few
years experience, first fixing the stuff and later removing it.

Regards
Bill