Asbestos.
A word that literally makes your heart stop. Your soul dies a little. And you swear. Loudly.
With every build, comes the inevitable asbestos testing. Because nowadays they have to do it. There's no option, as it's a council requirement. Or government one. One or the other. Who makes you is really irrelevant as when your construction firm tell you it has to be done all you can do is smile and nod. And patiently wait for the results.
We thought we had nothing to worry about. I mean we'd been in the building for decades. So when they came back and told us the building had tested positive we were absolutely dumbfounded. But we had no option but to keep pushing forward. They had to call in the big guns though.
An asbestos specialist company who came through so quickly and sealed the place up tight. Every opening sealed.
They fitted huge fan units to all the doors and for 24 hours a day ran these giant units, sucking out any contaminated airborne dust.
Then after they had been running for a week or two, they decided enough was enough and they came in and cleaned the building inside, top to bottom.
There was a single asbestos concrete panel on the outside of the back garage door so they removed that and took it away.
Finally, they sealed the entire inside floor with two coats of an apparently special sealant that was supposed to trap any remaining asbestos dust and keep it safely sealed and away from where it could be breathed in by anyone and cause harm.
At the time it was so frustrating knowing the results were so tiny, but cause so much cost and work.
I mean, I don't want anyone to be unsafe, so we were never going to deny the work, but dammit I resent it so much watching the palava they went through for what the company admitted was negligble. They really need to get way more accurate testing so they can be 100% sure that what they are cleaning up is dangerous and not at a level where it's not a huge risk. When the asbestos company are telling you that even a few fibres can pop a test positive but really be no harm, it does make you question everything everyone is telling you - and given how many other contaminants there are in the world I question how they can not have worked out a reliable testing method that actually tells you exactly where every bit of asbestos is accurately.
I feel like that would save a lot of time and work, so that projects like ours could be managed much better and faster.
I also feel like companies could more accurately target exactly what they need to! As opposed to a one size fits all kind of clean up deal where no matter how much or how little they find, they have to jump through the same hoops.
Less slowdowns = more savings and faster project finishes while still allowing people to be safe while working in spaces.
Once it was done though, it was a huge relief for it to be over. The noise and fuss was a nightmare to live next to! And once it was done finally Maycroft could actually begin the work they needed to do!
Here are some images of the inside, cleaned and sealed. Also where they removed the single asbestos panel from above the roller door.
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