Popcorn Ceiling Asbestos Under Microscope, Artex Asbestos Testing For Ceilings What You Need To Know

This popular stylizing technique as recent as the 1980s included the use of asbestos fibers.

Erin brockovich pge case. Under new zealand law most asbestos removal in popcorn ceilings must be performed by a licensed professional. Another asbestos fallacy involving popcorn ceilings is perpetuated by many contractors and others in the building trades. Asbestos is highly toxic and is a known carcinogen.

Because the asbestos is in a friable form that is easy reduced to powder it isnt safe for someone without the proper training to remove. Asbestos can cause many health problems including lung cancer so its very important to test your ceilings if they were built prior to the ban. If a general home inspector thinks you may have asbestos in your home they will typically only identify it as an asbestos like material while on site explains founder of internachi the international association of certified home inspectors nick gromicko.

Spray on textured ceiling was popular from the 1950s to the 1980s because it was an easy way for builders to hide imperfections. Its use in textured paint was banned in 1977 by the consumer product safety commission so yours might not contain the substance if your home was constructed later than that. That means that popcorn ceilings installed as late as the mid 80s could contain asbestos and when disturbed disperse microscopic fibrils known to cause lung scarring illnesses and even lung.

Asbestos can only be 100 positively identified using a specialized microscope. In this article we provide photographs and descriptive text of asbestos insulation and other asbestos containing products to permit identification of definite probable or possible asbestos materials in buildings. You cant tell just by looking at your popcorn ceiling if it contains asbestos the fibers are microscopic thousands of times smaller than the width of the human hair.

Not all popcorn ceilings contain asbestos. Many of these ceilings were made partially out of asbestos a silicate material which was banned in many countries starting in the 1970s. The risk of fibres spreading and contaminating the rest of your home is simply too high.

Asbestos fibres trapped in popcorn ceilings are not harmful until they are disturbed or damaged. Because the fibres are microscopic it can be almost impossible to detect asbestos without asbestos accredited lab testing. It is the belief that asbestos ceiling texture was banned during.

Photographs provided on this page illustrate what asbestos fibers or fragments may look like under the polarized light microscope.