There are probably more dangers lurking in and around your home than you realize. If the air inside your house has a high moisture content, you could have a mold colony slowly spreading in some hidden corner, or possibly inside the ducts of your heating and air conditioning system.
Even if you don’t, have you ever had an indoor air quality test performed? You might be surprised at the amount of dust, pollen, pet dander and other pollutants wafting through the air you breathe every single day.
Envirotex is a licensed, asbestos inspection and abatement contractor. We offer:
What about lead paint and/or asbestos? Home disclosures aren’t always 100% accurate, so you may have lead paint in your home without even realizing it. Asbestos was commonly used in construction starting in the 1920’s through the 1980’s, so it’s entirely possible you’ve got asbestos siding on your Middleburg, VA home, which wouldn’t normally be disclosed when you bought the property.
All of these things are potentially hazardous to your health, but how do you know if they’re present, and if they are, how worried should you be?
Without expert help, some of these threats may be difficult to detect, and even more difficult to remove safely. That’s where Envirotex comes in.
We opened our doors in 2000, and since that time, we’ve grown to become the region’s most trusted environmental services company, working with government agencies, businesses, and homeowners throughout the area.
If you want a complete accounting of the various threats in and around your property, and if you want to know whether you’ve got asbestos siding on your Middleburg, VA home, we can help. We’ll come do an assessment of your property, find any potential hazards, and give you a professional recommendation about how to proceed.
You’ll get a free, no-obligation estimate from us before any work begins, and if you’re comfortable with our proposal, we’ll see to it that the threat is eliminated and safely removed from your property.
Where asbestos siding on your Middleburg, VA home is concerned, the general recommendation from both the EPA and the Vinyl Siding Institute is that whenever possible, you should leave it in place, and simply place new siding over it, after covering it with a foam sheath.
Unfortunately, this course of action is not always possible. At a certain point, if your home has been sided and re-sided, adding another layer atop what’s already there may cause the siding to jut out farther than your door frame, which is unsightly and problematic. At that point, you may have no alternative but to remove the older layers and start fresh.
Even if that’s not the case, in the long run, it’s probably safer and better to have the asbestos siding on your Middleburg, VA property removed, as the act of installing something atop it may cause some of the underlying panels to break, which would release harmful asbestos fibers into the air and ground.
Given how harmful we know asbestos to be, you might be wondering why it was ever installed on homes and in office buildings to begin with.
Unfortunately, the answer is that when the material first came into widespread use, no one knew just how dangerous it was. It had a number of attributes attractive to builders though, including the fact that it was:
Based on these qualities, it was used for everything from pipe insulation to roofing shingles to asbestos siding on homes in Middleburg, VA and around the country. In the 50’s and 60’s, it was even used extensively for tiling kitchen and bathroom floors.
Gradually, we came to understand just how dangerous the material was, and in 1989, the EPA issued its Asbestos Ban and Phase Out Rule, and since then, government agencies, business owners, and homeowners have been steadily working to remove it.
That, however, is a monumental undertaking. It’s estimated that some 80% of the buildings constructed prior to 1980 have at least some asbestos in them, and given how dangerous it is, it’s not something that can be safely removed and disposed of by a do it yourselfer. It requires extensive experience with hazardous materials and a considerable amount of expertise and equipment far beyond what most DIYers have on hand.
If testing confirms the presence of asbestos siding on your Middleburg, VA property, and you want to have us remove it for you, we can certainly do so. The particulars of each job will vary, but in general, the process includes:
If the asbestos needs to be tested for any reason, we’ll send it to a certified lab.
Again, it’s important to note that unlike the presence of lead paint, sellers are not required to notify home buyers of the presence of asbestos siding on your Middleburg, VA property, so it’s entirely possible that it’s present and you don’t even realize it.
It’s also important to note that there is no legal requirement for homeowners to remove asbestos siding from their Middleburg, VA homes, but given the hazards associated with the material, most people will do so as soon as possible after discovering its existence.
In any case, if you do opt to have the asbestos siding on your Middleburg, VA home removed, then once that process is complete, you’ll be able to re-side with whatever material you had in mind prior to its discovery.
Bear in mind that the presence of asbestos in your home is not, in and of itself, automatically problematic. It’s only when the tiles (or shingles, in the case of asbestos roofing material) begin to degrade, disintegrate, chip, or break that it becomes a hazard. When that happens, particles are released into the air, and if inhaled, can lead to potentially serious lung problems, and in the most severe cases, mesothelioma.
You’ve probably seen at least one late night infomercial talking about class-action mesothelioma lawsuits. You can draw a straight line from those infomercials to long-term exposure to airborne asbestos particles, which underscores just how big a danger it can be.
Outright removal though, is not always necessary. As we said at the start, if possible, the approach recommended by the EPA where asbestos siding on your Middleburg, VA home is to leave it in place if at all possible and simply side over it.
In the case of asbestos floor tiling, if the tiles are in reasonably good shape (not cracking chipping, or disintegrating), many people simply opt to put new flooring material atop it, though some will take the added step of pouring a layer of concrete over the asbestos floor tiling to seal the potential contaminants in, but even this is not an absolute requirement.
In the case of asbestos shingles on your roof, the recommendation is the same as it is for siding. If at all possible, leave them in place, but again, you can only get away with that for so long. After two or three re-roofings, it’s time to strip everything away and start fresh. At that point, you don’t want to rely on just any company to come handle the remediation. You want experts in handling and properly disposing of hazardous materials to make sure that the process of getting it off your roof doesn’t create an even larger problem for you and your family.
The bottom line is that there’s only one completely reliable way to know what risks and hazards are lurking inside your home; professional testing.
And once you know what you’re up against, there’s only one good way to have those materials safely removed from your home; calling on a trusted expert, whose reputation for excellence is surpassed only by their reputation for safety.
In northern Virginia, the company to call is Envirotex. One call and your problem is well on the way to being a thing of the past.
Call us today. You’ll be very glad you did.
About Envriotex Environmental Services
Established in Northern Virginia in 2000, Envirotex Environmental Services was founded on military service. While serving his country, the company's owner Mr. Freeman gained vast knowledge and experience in the environmental services field. His expertise in air monitoring and hazardous materials testing prepared him for his post-military career.
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