Why Should You Get Asbestos Survey?

Owning a house is a blessing, and having a home built after 1991 would be ideal because you don’t have to worry about asbestos. However, if you are living in a home that is built before 1990, you need to read on.

Many of us might have heard of asbestos being in the ceilings, and might even have seen it. But perhaps you might not know that asbestos were used in many other home building materials such as, roof sheets, plaster board, pipe lagging, floor tiles, and roof tiles.

If this is the first time you heard of asbestos being in some of the materials I mentioned above, it is best that you schedule for an asbestos surveyor to come out and inspect your home.

Furthermore, there are some other materials, and are not all building related, that have contained asbestos. It just goes to show what you might not know. The three most commonly used types of asbestos are White (Chrysotile), Blue (Crocidolite), and Brown (Amosite). The products which these three types are commonly found in are cement products, vehicle brakes, ship building and fireproofing. If you don’t know or suspect there might be asbestos around you, it is necessary for you to click on asbestos survey to find how much it cost to have your home surveyed. The surveyor will take the samples to the laboratory and have them analyze for you.

Why should you care about having asbestos in your home? Asbestos fibers are very small and aerodynamic and are easily inhaled into the lungs. Once there, they might remain there permanently. Long periods of exposure to asbestos increase the risk of suffering or dying from an asbestos-related illness.

• Asbestosis - breathing disorder caused by inhaling asbestos fibers. Prolonged accumulation of these fibers in your lungs can cause scarring of lung tissue and shortness of breath. Asbestosis symptoms can range from mild to severe, and usually don't appear until years after exposure.

• Lung Cancer - the biggest killer amongst those exposed to asbestos, even in small doses - smokers exposed to asbestos face a far higher risk of developing lung cancer

• Mesothelioma - cancer of the lung or abdomen. If the dust is inhaled or swallowed, the asbestos fibers will settle in the lungs or in the stomach, where they can cause irritation that may lead to mesothelioma, though how exactly this happens isn't understood. It can take 20 to 40 years or more for mesothelioma to develop as a result of asbestos exposure.And yet, others with very brief exposure develop the disease.

I have listed some materials known to have contained asbestos, but this isn’t a complete list and to be sure you need a trained professional to do an analysis, or perform an asbestos survey of your home.

Abestosis and Mesothelioma definitions were taken from Mayoclinic.com