Asbestos ceiling tiles were installed a lot prior to the 1970’s and even up to the 1990’s so if your home, apartment or business has ceiling tiles and was built prior to the 1970’s, then there’s a good chance that it has asbestos ceiling tiles.
The problem is identifying whether or not they contain asbestos. As asbestos fibre was mixed in with the plaster it’s very difficult to tell unless you remove one and take it to a local laboratory.
Is there a danger with asbestos if it’s not removed? Asbestos is actually fine as long as it’s not disturbed, but if you are considering remodeling or renovating then this is an area that should go, but, take enormous care with handling of them if you are unsure whether they contain asbestos. If you break one the asbestos filaments will be released for sure. They are microscopic but once inhaled they will stick around inside your lungs and may cause a lung disease called mesothelioma which is a lethal lung tumor.
Brief history of asbestos Asbestos has been around since the first century (well actually it’s a mineral and has been around forever) when the Greeks discovered it’s huge benefits for heat insulation and numerous other things and it has been used ever since – well until the 1990’s when asbestos factories and manufacturers discovered that a lot of their workers were getting ill and dying.
Typical items that contain this toxic mineral are asbestos ceiling tiles, vinyl flooring, cement, heating ducts, sprayed-on wall and ceiling plaster, textured paints, blown-in insulation, roof tiles or shingles, sealants, sprayed-in fire-retardant items, and many thousands of additional items.
Acoustic asbestos ceiling tiles In the 1960’s and 1970’s asbestos ceiling tiles were a runaway success as acoustic tiles for both apartments and businesses. They were used for suspended ceilings and in this form electrical and cooling and heating ducting could be concealed above them. They looked attractive at the time and had this great benefit do were widely used. Of course, having ducting passing above them could cause the asbestos fibre to swirl around causing huge danger to workers.
There are professionals available to remove asbestos ceiling tiles if you are required or want them removed. You can do them yourself but you will need all sort of decontamination equipment and so the cost of either buying this or hiring it may simply outweigh the cost of hiring professionals to do this work for you.