Finding Asbestos Inside Your Home

Walls

Now, walls can be an amazing mix of products!  So many effects have been introduced over time to personalise a home.  Chair rails, dado rails, picture rails, textured looks, false panels, removal and insertion of doorways and windows, room extensions, heater changes, repair patches – well, you get the point.  Once painted, it’s easy to be tricked into thinking that everything is the same product. You must remember that asbestos cement products were moulded into all sort of shapes.

Familiarise yourself with each room individually, never assume that two rooms are the same without checking a couple of things first.

Walk into the room and assess the texture of the surface – is it all the same; are there lines where a repair patch might have been inserted; is it smooth all the way, or are there cover straps over the joins; can you see nail heads sitting just above the surface; is there a chair rail or picture rail, of some fashion, dividing the lower from the upper wall sections.

There may also be mouldings in the corner. These may be curved and look like modern ‘quad’ or it may be an L shaped moulding.

Grab yourself something solid, like a decent sized screwdriver, and begin a ‘GENTLE’ tap test – try not to get too crazy, unless you were planning on repainting soon anyway!  Tapping in different locations can assist the identification of building product changes.  You will notice that some areas sound like a soft ‘thud’ while others can sound quite ‘sharp/solid’.  It is a good idea to tap the bottom section (around knee height) AND the upper section (around head height) of each wall.

It is usually the ‘sharp/solid’ sounding products that require further investigation, especially if it has signs of raised nail heads, cover straps, etc.  Masonite, Cement Sheet and AC Sheet can all fall into this category.  Masonite can be easy to eliminate from suspicion as it is a processed timber product. It has a very dark brown colour to it, however, to assess this fact you need to disturb the integrity of the sheet.  There is a risk involved when doing this and necessary precautions need to be taken.

Another thing to be mindful of, some of the old style internal air vents were Moulded Asbestos also!

Remember that just like with the floor, however not as common, there may be multiple layers to the walls.  Look for any ‘tell tale’ signs that may indicate this such as pine lining boards which may be hiding the original asbestos cement sheet wall – as seen in this picture.

If you have access to see the back of the wall sheet you may be lucky enough to see ‘Does not contain Asbestos’ stamped on it!  It’s generally not that easy though! Just because ‘Asbestos’ isn’t printed on it certainly doesn’t mean it’s not asbestos.

If you can see the internals of the wall you should also be on the lookout for any ‘tape’ wrapped around pipes.  Asbestos Tape was used for insulation, sound elimination and repairs in plumbing and for its fire proofing with electrical wires.

While we’re looking at the walls let’s also look at what some of their other ‘features’.