DIY asbestos removal what could possibly go wrong? We get a lot of calls that start with “My husband has just cut into a wall and we think it might be asbestos, can you send somebody around to have a look at it for us?” It’s one of the many calls we are getting more and more of and to be honest they are the ones we wish we would never ever get we hate them!
We hate them because typically we are walking into a home and a family that has been totally contaminated with deadly asbestos fibres. We are in the business of keeping people safe that’s it, it’s our North Star nothing else is as important to us than keeping people safe. We blog, post on social media, network and engage with industry daily to get the message out Asbestos Kills.
The picture above looks just like a collection of photos of the contents of a family home ,it is in fact a catalogue of asbestos contaminated belongings that were disposed of as asbestos contaminated waste . This from the last DIY Disaster we were called in to rectify. This is the easy part we can decontaminate your family home that’s our skill set. DIY asbestos removal is not a great way to save money on a renovation, it’s reckless, it endangers your family and friends and it should be banned .
When we are called out to a DIY disaster the procedure we follow is like this . Once we are onsite we have a bit of a chat to the home owner to try to get to the truth we are not there to prosecute we are ther to make the family home safe . In a case like this we recommended moving out until the industrial hygienist had completed testing to see how far the contamination has spread in the family home .
Once we get the report from the hygenist we go about destroying all soft furnishings as contaminated waste this includes clothing , bedding,carpets, drapes anything we cannot wet wipe down . All the walls ceilings and floors are vacuumed with our asbestos approved vacuum cleaners then all hard surfaces are wet wiped down the hygents will insist on another round of tests before the home is ready for re entry. This is not covered by insurance usually and cost $1000″s of dollars one case we were involved in cost one hundred thousand dollars . Its just not worth it !