DIY asbestos abatement for fun and profit

Asbestos waste is not legal to dispose of in a regular landfill in many areas, and as dfriedman notes, you can't legally remove it yourself in many jurisdictions. Your local county environmental health people might have some info/suggestions for you about your jurisdiction specifically. The costs of removing it safely by yourself may be higher than you are estimating. A good asbestos respirator can run $350+ and you really should have it fit-tested to be safe. Asbestos disposal costs money. HEPA filters cost money. You also likely don't have the ability to conduct air clearance sampling, which will tell you if the air is safe to breathe after you're done; asbestos jobs create a lot of dust. (Especially if the material is friable. This material looks friable. Floor tile is generally non-friable and is a very different beast.) At the very least, I would ask a couple abatement contractors for bids. They may beat your costs. Two quick questions: 1) Is there an alternative place you can put the new boiler, so you can just encapsulate the asbestos and leave the old boiler in place? I have seen many people opt for this as the far cheaper option. 2) Has the material actually been tested and found to be asbestos? If not, it might be worth getting someone to actually test it, especially if parts of it look more like fiberglass. Sometimes only the elbows are actual asbestos.

In my area home removal/disposal is legal.You will work in small areas, perhaps 2 linear feet at a time. After wetting the asbestos with water and soap or some other surfactant like glycerin, make or tape a see-through bag over the work area. The bag should have holes in the bottom or side, where you have taped some disposable gloves. Work inside the bag to remove the asbestos. Pass through another opening in the bag a hand spray bottle and some rags. Wet down the exposed duct. Wipe it down with the rags. Then carefully remove the entire workbag into another bag and seal. Also a Hepa filter on a shop vac, and negative pressure in the workspace. running the shop vac exhaust to the outside would work.

Generally pros are best, but I too have an old home and am just going forward with our renovations as if some things contained asbestos and cleaning up on my own, but I know I don't have anything as nasty as insulation containing asbestos, the worst i may have is some old plaster with asbestos. Anyway buy a shop vac with a filter rated to contain asbestos and treat this whole thing as contaminated. Use the vac all the time, don't scrape anything, just remove the pipe in section and only use hand tools (except for the vac) as they will disturb much less and spread much less dust around. buy some old clothes and only use those in the area and trash them with the duct work (or buy a couple of tyvek suits and trash them). Make an airlock for the area you will be working in. Don't neglect to seal off the runs you will be working in to remove the duct work and when you unseal them use your vac to get every loose piece of material you can. then use wetted paper towels to clean up the dust. You are going to generate a LOT of trash to dispose of. All this waste is reason the pros charge so much-most of the stuff that is exposed to the asbestos needs to be disposed of-its a one use item. I do think the exposure risk you are looking at is not that great-most of the people who have the problems have a lifetime of working with the stuff in hot, sealed enviroments with little to no protection. You are looking at a one time exposure in a controlled enviroment. Humans are not that fragile (it seems some people thing just touching asbestos, or some other 'toxic' substance is just a sure sentence of long hideous death. Be smart, be thorough, accept it is going to take a LONG time to do it, you are going to be hot, tired and clumsy with the protective gear (and do wear the gear-while i don't think the chance is huge, why not reduce it as much as possible?) and make sure you ahve all the stuff you need before hand and a plan to get more if you need it without spreading the stuff around. Good luck.

We had asbestos removed from our basement by professionals. Here's some feedback based on that experience: Step 1 included the installation of some sort of filtered high-power exhaust system to reduce the air pressure in the room. The idea is to make sure that any leaks in seals you've created around the space cause air to be sucked into the room, not out of it. You are missing step 7, which is to thoroughly test the air in the space multiple times before removing the sealing material. I don't have the records handy and it was several years ago, but I believe the cost for this job was $3,000 per boiler + associated ductwork. I was surprised it wasn't more than that, and was very happy to have the material out of the house.

At step 4, DON'T scrape the asbestos off the ductwork. Just take out the ducts intact, disturbing as little as possible (after wetting and taking the other precautions you mentioned.) Some very old ductwork has soldered joints, so you may need to cut it with tin-snips. If so, try not to bleed too much. The local landfill here (where homeowner self-disposal is perfectly fine) has you call ahead and they dig a special hole to dump your carefully-sealed bags in. There's a little bit of paperwork to do, too. Get all the rules before you touch anything.

Would an air clearance test by professionals afterwards be sufficient to establish that amateur removal was successful? I have no intention of hiding this from future home-buyers.

It is important to note the reason why the HVAC contractors won't touch it is that, in addition to the small risk to themselves, they would be opening themselves up to all kinds of hellish liability. In doing this project yourself, you are volunteering to pay all of the people you hurt including the next occupant of your house if you do not disclose the amateur removal.

1) Is there an alternative place you can put the new boiler, so you can just encapsulate the asbestos and leave the old boiler in place? I have seen many people opt for this as the far cheaper option. Yes, I can entomb the boiler where it stands, but the asbestos-wrapped ducts still need to go because the HVAC contractors will not touch them. 2) Has the material actually been tested and found to be asbestos? No, and this is a good idea. I will have it tested. The home inspector said "There's a 99% chance that's asbestos, but I'm not legally certified to tell you it is for sure".

re: legality I will verify the legal aspects of this before proceeding. With this question I'm more interested in the actual best practices for removal.