Does Your Home in Herndon, VA Have Asbestos Shingles?

Testing your Home for Asbestos Shingles in Herndon, VA

If you have asbestos shingles on your Herndon, VA home, you may be tempted to just shingle over them. After all, once they’re covered with new shingles, there should be no problem, right?

Envirotex is a licensed, asbestos inspection and abatement contractor. We offer:

• Safe and vigilant containment and removal following the highest safety procedures
• Thorough site decontamination
• Lawful disposal
• All asbestos testing performed by an independent, certified lab

Actually, it’s not quite that simple. The unfortunate reality is that asbestos tends to be remarkably brittle, so when your roofing contractor starts hammering into the old shingles to put your new roof on, the act of doing so is going to invariably cause some, and perhaps many of them to crumble apart.

When that happens, tiny asbestos particles will be released into the air. Some of those will wind up in your yard, where they’ll be tracked into your home on the bottom of your shoes. Others will float around in the air until they find their way inside or are breathed in by you or a member of your family.

In either case, the risk is that some of them will ultimately be inhaled, which can lead to all sorts of trouble.

Maybe you’ll get lucky, and when you breathe those particles in, nothing will happen. If you’re not quite as lucky, you’ll develop inflammation in your lungs or some type of respiratory condition. In the worst and most extreme cases, you could wind up with mesothelioma, which is a devastating form of cancer.

For this reason, we absolutely do not recommend simply shingling over the asbestos shingles on your Herndon, VA home. You’re much better off having them safely and professionally removed, but who can do that kind of work?

We can! We’re the top-rated environmental services company in the region, and we’ve got the skills, experience, and specialized equipment to get the job done for you, giving you greater peace of mind and one less thing to worry about.

Asbestos has a long and unfortunate history in the United States. It first saw widespread use in construction in the 1920’s and was commonly used up until the late 1970’s.

In the early days, nobody had any ideas it was a dangerous material, and it had several properties that made it enormously attractive to builders. For example, it was:

• Fire resistant
• An excellent insulator
• Quite durable and long-lasting
• Extremely resistant to rot and termite damage
• Easy to clean
• Easy to replace
• And easy to paint

It’s no wonder that even today, you can find asbestos shingles on Herndon, VA homes, and in fact, you’ll find asbestos in a number of other places besides, including insulation, floor tiles, and even home siding. In fact, by some estimates, up to 80% of homes built before 1980 have asbestos in one form or another somewhere inside them.

Since the EPA issued its Asbestos Ban and Phase Out Rule in 1989, government agencies, businesses, and homeowners have been working diligently to remove it, but based on the numbers above, it’s a huge undertaking and has proven to be a daunting task.

Worse, unlike lead paint, which sellers are required to disclose the presence of, there is no legal requirement to disclose asbestos, so you may have a house full of the stuff and not even be aware of it.

There’s one way to know for sure though: Testing. Just give our office a call, and we’ll send one of our experienced remediation specialists out to your home to test for the presence of asbestos shingles on your Herndon, VA home, and elsewhere in your house or around your property.

Whatever the results of our testing, we’ll give you a full report, and if it turns out that you have an asbestos problem, we’ll draft a detailed remediation plan which will include a free, no-obligation estimate, so you’ll know exactly what it will take to put the problem behind you once and for all.

Then, assuming you’re comfortable with our estimate, we’ll get to work! Broadly speaking, our process is this:

1. Isolation: We’ll cordon off the area where the hazardous material is located so that as we proceed with remediation, none of the offending material will escape the area where it could cause trouble later on.
2. Removal: Once the area is secure, we’ll safely and completely remove the hazardous material.
3. Decontamination: After the material has been removed, we’ll thoroughly decontaminate the site so that no trace of it remains.
4. Disposal: We’ll dispose of the material using a properly licensed and accredited facility.

Note that in some cases, testing may be required and if it is, we’ll use a properly accredited lab and share the test results with you when we get them back.

While we absolutely recommend having the asbestos shingles on your Herndon, VA removed and disposed of, removal isn’t always the only or even the best option. For example:

• In the case of asbestos siding on your home, it may be possible to sheath it in foam, then simply side over it. Obviously, there are limits to how many times you can side over existing siding, so at some point, its removal will be required, but this may be a good stopgap measure if it’s a project you’d rather not undertake right away.
• In the case of asbestos floor tiling, it may be possible to entomb it beneath a layer of concrete, then simply put the flooring of your choice atop that.

Again, whatever the results of our testing and assessment reveal, we’ll give you our professional recommendation and work with you on how best to proceed.

If you even suspect the presence of asbestos or another environmental hazard anywhere on your property, don’t hesitate to give us a call. We’ll be there when you need us.

About Envriotex Environmental Services

Established in Northern Virginia in 2000, Envirotex Environmental Services was founded on military service. While serving his country, the company's owner Mr. Freeman gained vast knowledge and experience in the environmental services field. His expertise in air monitoring and hazardous materials testing prepared him for his post-military career.