Asbestos risk management: strategies for homeowners
How to recognise and detect asbestos in a building? What are the risks caused by asbestos? What should you do if you own an asbestos-contaminated home, and what strategies are available?
How do you identify, recognise and remediate asbestos in a building? This is a very important question, because we need to protect our health and the health of the people living with us, and also we need to meet our legal obligations.
But let’s proceed in the right order. What is asbestos? Asbestos, also known as asbeste, is a mineral, or rather a group of minerals, used in many areas of construction, in housing and in the construction of factories, hangars and public and private buildings of various kinds.
Before asbestos was prohibited in Switzerland in 1989, it represented excellent value for money, had remarkable technical properties, including heat resistance, was cheap and was widely available in nature. But one of its major problems is that it crumbles into very fine longitudinal fibres that are easily dispersed in the air and, once inhaled, cause very serious damage to health (mesothelioma, asbestosis and other diseases with often poor outcomes). How do you recognise asbestos?
SOS Amiante acts as a service to support the protection of health and environment, and it offers all property owners in Switzerland a fast and reliable asbestos detection service, which we will describe in detail in this article.
But for now, let’s take a closer look at the importance of discovering the presence of asbestos in a building when you own or rent it.
Discovering the presence of asbestos in a building
How do you recognise and detect asbestos in your building? To understand how to recognise asbestos in our buildings, we first need to understand where it can be found and where it has been used. Asbestos can be found in flats, private homes as well as in commercial and industrial buildings. So how do you recognise asbestos? Asbestos can come in many different forms and can be found in various parts building applications:
- linoleum floor covering or other plastic flooring materials
- adhesives of flooring materials
- tile adhesives
- plaster, putty and mastics
- waste water pipes
- pipe insulation
- lightweight bords, heat insulation boards and acoustic panels
- yarn, fabrics and sealants
- spray insulation
- fiber cement products
- bituminous materials
How is asbestos detected in buildings?
Our Swiss asbestos service supporting the detection of asbestos, SOS Asbestos, offers you a number of online services:
- The first step is to send us photographs of a suspect material or situations. You fill in our form with the necessary information, such as the date of construction of your building or the date of the renovation of your bathroom. A Swiss asbestos diagnostic specialist will analyse the photo to assess the possible presence of asbestos.
- An in-depth asbestos analysis involving laboratory service is also possible. You take the sample and send it to our laboratories so that any traces of asbestos can be identified.
- We can connect you with one of the diagnosticians in the SOS Asbestos network. An expert will visit your home to carry out an in-depth assessment of the areas at risk.
Measures to avoid asbestos-related health risks for residents and users
According to a source from the Italian organisation and website osservatorioamianto.com, in Switzerland between 1946 and 1989, the year in which asbestos minerals were banned, it is estimated that more than 3,000,000 tonnes of asbestos were used and processed. The likelihood of there still being asbestos in our homes, if they were built or renovated during this period, is fairly high.
Under Swiss law, when carrying out work on a building constructed before 1990, the owner is responsible to check the old building materials for the presence of asbestos. If this is the case, any work that releases dust is potentially releasing asbestos in the air. Special procedures for safe and reliable processing of asbestos containing materials are defined.
How to check for the presence of asbestos? Firstly, by referring to the construction project, including documentation relating to previous work carried out on the building. Then, if materials of doubtful origin are discovered, it should be assumed that they contain asbestos.
A risk assessment can then be carried out following an asbestos diagnosis by our services.
In cases where the presence of asbestos in the building presents a health risk, i.e. in all cases where there is a possibility of even slight damage to the asbestos surface, decontamination and asbestos removal are more than advisable, as this is the only way to avoid serious damage to health.
Preservation or removal of asbestos-containing materials in buildings
Depending on the condition of the material containing asbestos and the size of the asbestos-contaminated site, different types of remediation and disposal can be used.
Remediation :
- Conventional remediation, or asbestos removal, involves permanently eliminating the risk of exposure by asbestos removal and landfilling the asbestos present in the building.
Encapsulation :
- The encapsulation remediation technique involves using a liquid to cover the surfaces of materials containing asbestos minerals, thus preventing the release of fibres. This method reduces the risk of exposure to zero, but it is a temporary solution because the liquid loses its ability to adhere over time and the fibres disperse back into the environment. Encapsulation is the most economical form of asbestos remediation.
Containment remediation :
- Containment involves installing a sealing barrier that separates asbestos materials more effectively and safely, although it is more expensive than encapsulation. In this case, the risk of exposure could reappear with the occurrence of future damage or demolition.
- If the asbestos diagnosis shows that the asbestos containing material is of good quality, has not deteriorated and is not releasing asbestos fibres into the atmosphere, conservation is possible, but periodic re-evaluation will be required.
Asbestos diagnosis and material testing to protect the value of your property
Because asbestos was banned in Switzerland by law in 1989, it is a direct cause of a fall in property value. If the presence of asbestos is diagnosed by an official document, asbestos removal and remediation are the two measures sometimes needed to preserve the value of a property.
Similarly, an asbestos test proving that the building is compliant and free of hazardous materials, in this case asbestos, also helps to preserve the value of a building, house or flat.
Ultimately, an asbestos diagnosis has a dual role to play: protecting the health of residents and preserving the value of a property.