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ouqt84

Disturbed aircell asbestos pipe wrap?

eri
4 years ago

Hi dear plumbers.

I know all answers on this post would be speculative, but I'm trying to figure out if my neighbor's illegal plumbing might be the source of the asbestos dust found in my coop..I had it tested and it came back positive on a TEM basis (after intense clesnings)...

Backgound: many months ago, my coop neighbor did a large reno without permits.
During construction, dust entered my apartment daily, and, when asked, Coop Management claimed:

  1. The contractor did not need a permit for the work they were doing since they were not moving PLUMBING or electrical.

  2. There is no asbestos in the units.

Management likely lied because of 2 reasons:

  1. They actually DID need a permit. I reported the construction after it ended (not during it, which would have likely shut job down) and a violation was issued for unpermitted plumbing.

  2. There IS asbestos in the units. According to past pre-reno assessments available as public knowledge on my city's website, pipes within walls of the units (not just boiler room) have aircell asbestos insulation which i read is highly friable. In those pre-Reno cases, the inspector just cited the presence of aircell insulation. It didn't have to be removed before the reno because either the amount was under 10 linear feet or the work would not require the aircell to be disturbed.

I spoke to an asbestos inspector who looked at the records with me and agreed that the unpermitted plumbing may have illegally disturbed this insulation, but it is hard to really know since the work is over.

So, that's why I'm hoping for some insight... All I know is that there were no licensed plumbers or asbestos checks involved. Before I complained to the city and was still on good terms with Management, they told me that they made the contractor open the wall to fix some of the plumbing that they did.

I will never know if the aircell insulation present in the apartment walls is wrapping the plumbing pipes or the heating pipes or both. All I know is they installed (moved???) plumbing and probably did other illegal work.

The only information about the plumbing work they did is listed on the violation which reads:

"PLUMBING WORK W/O PERMIT. INSTALLED PLUMBING FIXTURES (3PC BATH) AND KITCHEN SINK ALONG WITH WATER AND WASTE LINES. JOB100% COMPLETED. NO PERMIT ON FILE.

Based on permit violation language, is it possible that they ripped out aircell insulation? At first, I speculated that the asbestos maybe came from the outside or from the plaster they disturbed. But after reading that there is aircell insulation in the units, I am doubly concerned.

I had breast cancer a few years ago so that adds to the concern....

Thank you!!

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