Asbestos?

[Tim]

I'm looking for input on this material that I have found around part of a jacketed copper exhaust pipe on a boat I'm working on. So far, I haven't disturbed it.

Given the general appearance of the material, along with its presumed age, I am wondering if it might contain asbestos. I'd appreciate input from anyone with asbestos experience. It sure looks fishy to me based on what little I know about the stuff.

[Figment]

From what I can see in that first pic, it's certainly possible. The only way to know for sure is to send a nickel-sized sample in for testing.

I know I used to see DIY small-project sized testing and abatement kits at home depot, but thinking for a minute I can't remember seeing the kits at all recently. I'm fairly sure that you can pick one up onine from one of the big safety supply houses.

Of course there is the "if you don't have to mess with it you don't have to abate it" school of thought, but given the vibrating nature of the copper monster, I'll opine that this doesn't apply here. The fibers will become airborne no matter how you encapsulate them.

[Tim]

Of course there is the "if you don't have to mess with it you don't have to abate it" school of thought, but given the vibrating nature of the copper monster, I'll opine that this doesn't apply here. The fibers will become airborne no matter how you encapsulate them.

That doesn't apply here, since this particular exhaust is scheduled to be removed. From the state of the insulation, it's probably spread its goodness around the entire boat over the years.

[Figment]

ah, then your own protection is simply a matter of taping a plastic enclosure around the insulated portion of the pipe before you grab the sawzall.

Disposal may be another hurdle, but I know nothing of the regs on this stuff in the wilds of Maine. :)

Is this part of a full-blown repower, or simply a waterlift conversion?

[Tim]

How worried do I need to be about handling this stuff? There's no way to avoid touching it, even for the simple matter of wrapping plastic around, since it's currently beneath a couple metal clamp-like things that would need to be moved, and also because it's against the hull.

If I wear gloves and a respirator, and wet the material down with water to minimize dust, will I be bound to the hospital bed in my later years?

Seriously, with all the well-publicized worry about asbestos, I don't know concerned I need to be from a realistic standpoint about handling this small amount in this one instance.

[Figment]

I would think that you've probably inhaled enough fiberglass and other harmful dust in your lifetime that this occasion would be a drop in the bucket even if you didn't take any protective measures.

I personally would just wear my respirator, but the gloves won't hurt.

I would also have my dustvac handy (and running), but that may have more of a placebo affect than any other.

The only downside of the wet-down is that it will prevent tape from sticking, and "containment" really is the name of the game.

I understand your caution, but really you're OK. pros wear full-body airsuits and such when they're doing large areas, but if they're just stripping the insulation away from a 4' section of pipe to make or break a connection, all they do is tape a bag (with built-in gauntlets) over the section and get to work.

[Ric in Richmond]

when asbestos abatement companies remove it in houses they keep it wet so that it doesn't become "friable".

I think as long as you keep it form being inhaled you are fine.

[Jason K]

Just hold your breath.


I know that much of the hype about asbestos is rooted in the hysteria caused by salivating class action attorneys. At the same time, it is a dangerous substance and I wouldn't want to worry about some evil substance in my lungs that may or may not kill me. I would give some serious thought to having professionally removed and disposed.

This page has some brief information and links to more information about small scale asbestos removal: http://hometips.com/articles/asbestos3.html

[catamount]

Asbetos is defined as a mineral fiber meeting certain size and aspect ratio criteria. There are two main families of minerals that are used as Asbestos, crocidolite which is an amphibole mineral, and chrysotile which is a serpentine mineral. It is the crocidolite that is considerably more hazardous than the chyrsotile, but there is no way to easily identify what you have without sending a sample to a lab, and they were often mixed. The result is that all Asbestos is treated the same by the regulators.

The primary hazard is from breathing the Asbestos fibers, where they can cause physical irritation of the lung tissue (think of the crocidolite asbestos fibers as a bunch of tiny sharp needles; the chrysotile fibers are more like soft threads). They are relatively inert magnesium silicates, so they are not really much of a chemical hazard.

So the hazard from Asbestos is really not that different from the hazard of fiberglass sanding dust, although the OSHA and EPA regulations might not look at it that way.

Here's a link to the Maine Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management's Fact Sheet on Asbestos: http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/asbestos/asbfact.htm

with much more information at:

http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/asbestos/index.htm

So the question is, do you have greater than 3 feet of this pipe insulation that you have to deal with?

Good Luck,

[Tim]

OK. Good info. I wasn't that worked up about it, and was about ready to remove the stuff this morning when I decided a little caution was called for, just in case.

Fiberglass, lead dust, and the like are hazards with which I am familiar, and from which I am comfortable with the means on hand for protecting myself. Other than seeing the extreme protection means taken by asbestos abatement contractors, I know (knew) little about asbestos and its practical hazards, so I didn't want to jump in and start ripping and tearing. All the hype certainly makes one wonder, if only as a precautionary measure. Chicken Little I am not, however.

It's a small area, confined to that seen in the photos. It's clearly a dry, friable substance that I suspect will fall apart when maneuvered. It's loosely wrapped around the pipe (from what I can tell), and should come right off without a struggle. Therefore, I believe that just removing it and being done with it is the best approach here. I'll probably live at least 99% as long as I was going to before finding this stuff, so good enough.

[Mark.Wilme]

I think I concur - I' wear my respirator, body suit and gloves, run an extractor fan and also wet it down. too. If there is going to be any dust I'd try and mist it with a garden hose as I break it loose and maybe (maybe) seal off the area of the boat - I'd bag it before it comes out too

[kabauze]

Fiberglass, lead dust, and the like are hazards with which I am familiar, and from which I am comfortable with the means on hand for protecting myself.

Hmm, as soon as I read that I realized that the mountains of dust currently spread around the inside of my Triton may be from lead paint. I've been doing a lot of sanding and grinding in the head & hanging locker as I replace the chainplates, repair the knees, and get ready for a repaint. For some reason it never occurred to me that old boats probably have the same problem as old houses: full of lead paint. My Triton is a '63 and the lead paint ban didn't go into effect till '78, evidently.

Is this true? I reached 'painting age' after the lead paint ban went into effect and have no idea how commonplace these paints were or even if they would have been used on boat interiors. Has anyone here on the forum tested the paint on their old boat to see if it's lead based? From looking around on the web, it seems like lead dust is dealt with in homes by using particulate respirators, vacuums with HEPA filters, wet sanding, and wet mop cleanup. I've been wearing a respirator and Tyvek while sanding, but the dust is freakin' everywhere and I haven't been that careful about it.

Anybody have more experience or information on this stuff?

[mashedcat]

I have probably pulled up a dumpster worth of old asbestos junk. That would be 30 years ago. I'm still here. But, who knows? Could be that some people get affected more than others. I had a quintuple bypass, ate low fat and all the usual crap. Maybe you ate cream and bacon and live to be 100. Put on all the safety crap, tear it out and roll the dice?? Live long and sail

[catamount]

I've been wearing a respirator and Tyvek while sanding, but the dust is freakin' everywhere and I haven't been that careful about it.

Well at least you're not a toddler with a still-developing brain! -- they're the ones for whom lead is a real problem, because (1) they're more likely to eat the lead contaminated dirt, and (2) their brains are still developing.

For more info, start here: http://www.epa.gov/lead/

[kendall]

My view is that while it is not something I'd want around all the time, it's not nearly as bad as the hype says. Boith asbestos and lead paint were used on a regular basis in nearly every home in the country, and in almost every business, you could buy asbestos ironing board covers at the local supermarket, asbestos wrap and other products in the hardware store, and lead paint is everywhere, boats even as you say.

If it were a certain road to ill health, there wouldn't be a social security funding problem in the country today, and retirement homes would not be needed. Considering that most social security recipients, and retirement home residents were growing up when you couldn't avoid the stuff, that's saying something!

Most is hype, it's hard to extract funding to remove something if it's not feared. conversely, if you can make someone afraid, you can sell them anything if it can be percieved as being for safety, watch the commercials on tv and you'll see it in action. From onstar, to the millions of antibacterial products, commercials for all wheel drive cars, alternatives for functional bottom paints, and sunscreen. I don't own a TV, so when I find myself watching one, I tend to analyze the commercials.

Most of the people who used to harp on me for driving my little bronco2 4x4 because it wasn't environmentally friendly, are now happily cruising down the road in their escalades and expeditions because suddenly it's shown as a good thing by TV. (same with motorcycles)

Ken.

[kabauze]

Thought I'd post a followup on what I found out about lead paint in my Triton. I know this thread is called 'Asbestos', and that I'm way off topic, but...

I called up a local firm that advertised itself as consultants and contractors for lead, asbestos, and mold abatement. They were very helpful and the president spent quite a bit of time with me discussing the problem. He'd spent thirty years dealing with asbestos, mold, and lead and his opinion was that lead paint was the only true health hazard of the three. I think that reinforces what a lot of us suspected about asbestos - that's a benign material unless handled or disturbed in certain ways.

It turns out that there are a couple of common ways to test for lead paint. In one, they bring a portable x-ray machine to the site, point it at the wall, and measure the absorbtion of certain wavelengths. Lead is a great radiation blocker, as we know, so this method can indicate lead pretty well. It's expensive, though: to get a tech to come check out the boat was going to be $300-400.

The other method is to take a sample of dust, chips, or scrapings and send it off to the lab. Evidently they dissolve it in nitric acid and run some sort of voltage test with certain anodes & cathodes. This method cost me $35 a sample. I took two samples from the Triton, using a sharp chisel to remove paint chips from the inside hull and from the settee top.

The lab had the results back in three days. The sample from the inside hull was pretty much lead-free, and the sample from the settee top had some lead. The settee top has two layers that look like a wood primer and a finish coat. Since the finish coat is the same paint as the hull, I suspect the primer may have had some lead in it. Luckily, the lead level is somewhat below what constitutes lead paint (and I"m sure that's a conservative limit already).

The bottom line is that if you suspect your boat, or your home, or anything, might have lead paint, it's fairly inexpensive to have these simple tests run. After getting the results back, I'm just going to continue doing what I have done: using my P100 dust filters on the respirator, vacuuming paint dust fairly often (and my shop vac now has a HEPA filter) and washing down the boat when I'm done sanding.

[catamount]

It turns out that there are a couple of common ways to test for lead paint. In one, they bring a portable x-ray machine to the site, point it at the wall, and measure the absorbtion of certain wavelengths. Lead is a great radiation blocker, as we know, so this method can indicate lead pretty well.
....
The other method is to take a sample of dust, chips, or scrapings and send it off to the lab.

[nerdery]
The first method actually uses X-ray fluorescence, not absorbtion. The instrument shines x-rays on whatever you point it at. The x-rays cause the atoms in the target to get all excited, and they end up fluorescing their own x-rays, the wavelength (or energy) of which are characteristic of the particular chemical element. So they shine x-rays on the wall, and look for lead x-rays coming back from the wall.

In a lab, there are a whole host of possible analytical techniques for determining the lead composition of your paint chips, including x-ray fluorescence (such as the instrument in my lab!)
[/nerdery]

[Figment]

Long live the Nerdery.

[Jedediah]

The thought 5 years ago when I went through asbestos abatement training was containment and wetting. If its a large scale removal then all sorts of regulations apply and particle counts have to be taken to monitor air quality inside and outside the containment area as well as PPE, air filters, etc.

Small scale like what you're talking about is much easier. The preferred method to dealing with these was to bag the area (normally occurred on boiler pipes). A bag is placed over the pipe in such a way that the pipe is wrapped in a bag. The asbestos is knocked off via pressure through the bag and then the bag is carefully and quickly flipped inside out trapping the asbestos and dust inside.

Once the material is in the bag, its double bagged and sent to a specific EPA approved land fill. The one near Denver where I took the class had a reputation of then carefully running over the bags with a trash compactor popping them all open again--so much for regulations... The amount of containment material (plastic sheeting/duct tape) was amazing as well as HEPA filters for the air handlers and respirators which were also double bagged and sent to the same land fill to be popped open by the land fill people.

The danger from asbestos is two fold vs fiber glasses which is only one. Both will cause white lung (scaring due to fibers in the lung) but asbestos is also more prone to cause cancer (methothelioma) if the particles are between 2-5 microns (I think). Anything bigger and the nose filters it out, anything smaller and its absorbed in the blood stream and exits the body. It was also pointed out in the class that any intersection (due to brake pads containing asbestos) have a higher than allowed for particle count via EPA regulations.

Keep it wet, bag it quickly and wear an respirator and I doubt much more harm will come to you than from dealing with fiberglass. After-all, it used to be common practice for people installing asbestos earlier than 1976 to come home covered in the stuff--such as the guy teaching the class. Admitably he had a noticeable case of white lung, always coughing and wheezing, but no sign of cancer.

[Tim]

I had no problem removing this insulation about a week ago. I sprayed it with water and pulled it off. It had appeared to be much more friable and drier than it actually was; it didn't fall apart in the least, and wasn't adhered to the pipe at all, so removal took about 21.24 seconds with no fanfare.

Thanks for all the info, everyone. It always pays to think about what you're doing in any old boat project, but the realities are rarely as bad as sensationalistic mental images. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, though.