A short story
Asbestos has always been part of our history. It has been discovered that even the Egyptians used this mineral in the process of mummification to protect bodies from decay. However, for construction, it took until the early 1900s for asbestos to be added to materials for commercialization.
The danger of asbestos
In 1948, the population discovered that asbestos can kill, a fact already known by the managers of the mines. It was the journalist Burton Ledoux who revealed, in the Jesuit magazine Relations, that workers were dying of silicosis, a lung disease. A link is made with the asbestos dust that many miners breathe. (Radio-Canada, 2017)
A change of law
Despite the fact that the cases of lung problems that presented themselves several years after being exposed to asbestos, many industries continued their production and asbestos mines were still active. Towards the end of the 1970s, the public began to be aware that this mineral was responsible for many mortalities and gradually they put pressure on manufacturers to find a substitute. It is for this reason that several laws have been passed and that the flocking produced since the 1990s no longer contains asbestos and the thermal insulation, since 1999. It is therefore reasonable to say that all houses built before 1999 may contain asbestos. asbestos.
Asbestos analysis and air test
Was your house built before 1990?
Precautions in accordance with the requirements of the CNESST must be taken during construction work if samples contain asbestos with a concentration greater than 0.1%. If a material in your house contains asbestos with a concentration greater than 0.1% and this said material is in good condition and is not friable, the presence of asbestos does not represent any danger to the health of the occupants. of the residence as long as the material remains in good physical condition and that no demolition work is carried out on these materials. The asbestos hazard begins when its fibers end up in the air.
A group of minerals
very interesting
Asbestos is part of a group of minerals composed of silicate which contains very interesting properties including insulating value, soundproofing and fire resistance.
This is one of the reasons why many building material manufacturers have started adding one or more types of asbestos to their products. There are several materials that are likely to contain asbestos and that are found in our homes such as plaster, cement plaster, flocking, insulation, etc.