How To Tell If A Roof Has Asbestos

Shingles placed on a roof before the mid 1980s might contain asbestos.

How to tell if a roof has asbestos.

It isn t easy to identify asbestos especially if you don t know what it looks like. The tiles may have asbestos too. But just because your insulation is old doesn t mean it is dangerous. It is made of a mix of cement and asbestos fibers and as the majority of the materials which contain asbestos it is only dangerous when damaged and in poor condition.

Some asbestos products contain identification marks making it easier for those with a trained eye to spot a contamination. You can t see it if the floor is intact but you can spot the black adhesive if some of the tiles have already popped off the floor. On roofs themselves asbestos cement can be frequently found in the form of panels gutters insulation roof shingles siding downpipes or the entire roof itself. How to identify asbestos.

In older homes specifically asbestos may be found in many different materials from pipe insulation to flooring adhesive to roof shingles. Determine the age of the building. This government guide contains a useful diagram to identify where asbestos may be present on your property. The mastic itself usually has asbestos in it.

But fear not because we re on hand to inform you about how to identify asbestos in your garage roof. They ll take fingernail sized samples and test them in a laboratory. When was it built. The only reliable way to know if your home contains asbestos is to hire an environmental consulting firm or asbestos building inspector for asbestos testing.

It is virtually impossible for anyone but a trained professional with a high powered microscope to tell definitively whether a shingle contains asbestos. Asbestos was used from the early 20s to the late 80s. Asbestos was molded into many different shapes and sizes to fill different needs. Asbestos flooring often has black mastic which is a type of adhesive on the back.

This type of roof can be quite easy to recognize as it usually has a green coloration and a striated texture. For example sheets of asbestos were used to make up walls and slats of asbestos were created to serve as roof tiles. One of the most common materials containing asbestos fibers is attic and wall insulation. When a building is quite old it has a good chance of having asbestos building materials.

This makes it very difficult to spot especially when it has been mixed to create cement. Since asbestos building materials cannot be easily spotted with the naked eye the best clue is to find out when the roof was actually built. Each mold has a different location that may be stamped with manufacturer s information. Due to its microscopic size asbestos was usually mixed with other materials to create asbestos containing materials acm s.

Asbestos was only fully banned in the uk construction industry in 1999.