How To Tell If A Roof Has Asbestos

On roofs themselves asbestos cement can be frequently found in the form of panels gutters insulation roof shingles siding downpipes or the entire roof itself.

How to tell if a roof has asbestos.

It is virtually impossible for anyone but a trained professional with a high powered microscope to tell definitively whether a shingle contains asbestos. Shingles placed on a roof before the mid 1980s might contain asbestos. But fear not because we re on hand to inform you about how to identify asbestos in your garage roof. How to identify asbestos.

Asbestos was molded into many different shapes and sizes to fill different needs. For example sheets of asbestos were used to make up walls and slats of asbestos were created to serve as roof tiles. Tips to spot an asbestos garage roof. Due to its microscopic size asbestos was usually mixed with other materials to create asbestos containing materials acm s.

This type of roof can be quite easy to recognize as it usually has a green coloration and a striated texture. Each mold has a different location that may be stamped with manufacturer s information. This makes it very difficult to spot especially when it has been mixed to create cement. You can t see or smell asbestos but exposure to loose fibers can cause lung disease such as mesothelioma asbestosis or lung cancer.

One of the most common materials containing asbestos fibers is attic and wall insulation. Some asbestos products contain identification marks making it easier for those with a trained eye to spot a contamination. Asbestos flooring often has black mastic which is a type of adhesive on the back. You can t see it if the floor is intact but you can spot the black adhesive if some of the tiles have already popped off the floor.

The tiles may have asbestos too. However asbestos fibers can cause serious lung and respiratory problems if inhaled. This government guide contains a useful diagram to identify where asbestos may be present on your property. Determine the age of the building.

When was it built. They ll take fingernail sized samples and test them in a laboratory. Asbestos was only fully banned in the uk construction industry in 1999. The mastic itself usually has asbestos in it.

It is made of a mix of cement and asbestos fibers and as the majority of the materials which contain asbestos it is only dangerous when damaged and in poor condition. The only reliable way to know if your home contains asbestos is to hire an environmental consulting firm or asbestos building inspector for asbestos testing. It isn t easy to identify asbestos especially if you don t know what it looks like. But just because your insulation is old doesn t mean it is dangerous.

When a building is quite old it has a good chance of having asbestos building materials.