There are various reasons to do expect during asbestos inspection in San Diego. Exposure to asbestos poses great safety and health hazards that should be eliminated or managed as quickly and possible. If your property requires the identification of asbestos, the inspection will be conducted by a qualified industrial hygiene company. Depending on what the inspection unveils, it could call for the proper removal or management of asbestos. Expect during asbestos inspection company should be independent of any influence from the company that hired it to do the removal work.
Evaluation
Before starting any demolition, renovation or other activity that could affect the suspect material, on-site evaluation of asbestos should be completed by a qualified and certified asbestos professional. The inspection is required by federal regulations and rules set forth by the US EPA and OSHA as well as a lot of state codes and regulations.
The inspecting company should be able to demonstrate appropriate licensing, experience and adequate professional liability insurance cover for the required environmental testing services. Without proper liability insurance, the property owner has no recourse for any damages due to errors in professional opinion or judgement. All of these are beyond the scope of the general liability insurance of the contractor.
The inspection process
The inspection process involves a visual inspection of the affected property space, bulk sample extraction, inventory of suspect material, laboratory test and analysis, survey reporting and recommendations.
Various regulations stipulate a specific number of samples to be taken from every type of material. A proper environmental testing labs requires the use of more than one sample from each type. For asbestos-containing materials, more than one sample is used due to the manufacturing process for the materials and limitations of analytical methods. Having a qualified, independent and experienced inspection firm is very important.
How long does the inspection take?
For most projects, an on-site inspection of asbestos can take a couple of hours for smaller buildings. However, larger buildings can take multiple days and even weeks. The inspector will need to have full access to all the rooms and space in the property or return site visits might be required. After the site work, standard lab analysis can take up to 10 days.
Without doing extensive demolition during an inspection, there is potential that concealed suspect material is present within the enclosed floor, wall, mechanical spaces and ceilings. This must be considered when it comes to planning for demolition or abatement work, should any be required.
When planning for inspections, most people overlook a repair to sample locations. Small pieces of materials should be extracted from the building as part of the inspection. This is typically a half to one square of material per sample. This will result in aesthetic issues at the least to significant property envelope issues in the case of roofing products and exterior sealants.
During an asbestos inspection in San Diego, there are some types of materials that require sampling. Asbestos was used in building materials years ago for example adhesives, floor tile, felt papers, plaster, gypsum board and so on.