Asbestos Free

Today the air quality tests confirmed that our basement is now asbestos free. Three weeks and quite a bit more money later, a problem we never knew we had has now been fixed.

When the plumber identified the insulation that he believed was asbestos, we immediately called in a team to test it. The company took it off to the lab and said that it was 10-20% chrysotile asbestos. Apparently this stuff comes in different varieties. We had another company come out to do the abatement and they identified yet ANOTHER pipe covered in asbestos insulation, this time unwrapped (the first pipe had something like packing tape covering the insulation). Yippee. Fortunately it was in a corner of the basement that we rarely use, leading into the unfinished bathroom that I usually forget we have. Can you see it there, running parallel with the back wall and above the orange spray foam (seriously, even our energy efficiency company working right next to it didn't noticed?).

 Here is a picture of it from inside the unfinished bathroom:

So the day of the abatement, a team of three worked for about two hours. They shut themselves up in the unfinished part of the basement, ran this loud vacuum device, and did their thing. For obvious reasons, we left them alone.

Then a couple of days later after the dust had settled, they came back and ran a little fan for an hour that circulated air onto some sticky pads - apparently a more sophisticated and sensitive test than the industry default of using sticky tape to just pick up surface lint, or so they said (either way, it was included in the price - which was their minimum price anyway). So off it went to the lab and, as of today, we are officially clear:

Asbestos-free party anyone? I wonder if they sell theme decorations for that? I'm thinking Hazmat suit.