My partner, our newborn son, and I live in a multi-family house from 1956 or 1958, where they are currently replacing front doors with security doors. In connection with these replacements, we have started to wonder if there is any risk that there might be asbestos around the old doors, such as in the insulation between the door frame and wall that is being removed?
Does anyone have any experience with this and maybe know something more?
No one on a forum can provide an answer to whether there is asbestos in a building, but I think you should not start worrying unnecessarily. Instead, assume that the craftsmen will point out to their employer or client that there might be asbestos if they suspect this, leading to remediation. There is an occupational safety law that states an employee cannot work with such materials unless it is done under controlled conditions. If it is discovered during work, the job is usually stopped and the client must pay for remediation, so there is no great reason to try to dodge it.
They have at least the same interest as you, and perhaps even a greater interest, in not getting sick since they work with this all the time, which you do not.
If you are going to worry about caulking around a door, you might as well start worrying about PCB or quartz in the building, as PCB was found in many sealants during the 50s-70s and this is also carcinogenic. Such materials are found in the joints around prefab concrete elements, doors, and windows. Quartz exists in much building material where various stone materials have been used, similar to dust from, for example, a pile of newly crushed gravel or from street cleaning done in cities.
But it's not possible to constantly worry because eventually, the worry becomes a greater problem than the risk of suffering from some illness due to materials that were once considered harmless. And what do we know about what we install today that is deemed harmless; they might be considered dangerous in 30 years...
But an educated guess is that there is nothing in the doors or around them made of asbestos, as it's usually insulation of the type fiberglass, and in older buildings, the insulation was often made of flax that could be tarred or clean without tar. Then the edge was bricked with normal mortar, very early lime mortar with cow hair in later cement-lime mortar. None of this is dangerous, so I think you can be pretty calm..........
Again, thank you to those of you who have provided factual answers. It is nice of you to take the time.
Regarding the discussion about asbestos hysteria, I can inform you that as a doctor, I am quite well-versed in the actual risks that asbestos exposure entails. A risk that I believe many severely underestimate. Odjuret's reasoning that one should not worry about possible asbestos exposure because there are more dangerous things is completely illogical to me. Why vaccinate yourself when traveling abroad when there is a much greater risk that you could die from a heart attack? Moreover, asbestos claims about 150 lives per year (but of course mainly through occupational exposure) while about 250 die in traffic, so the differences are not as large as you seem to think.
Again, thanks to those of you who provided factual answers. It's nice of you to take the time.
Regarding the discussion about asbestos hysteria, I can inform you that as a physician, I am quite well-versed in the actual risks that asbestos exposure entails. A risk that I believe many severely underestimate. Odjuret's reasoning that you shouldn't worry about possible asbestos exposure because there are more dangerous things is completely illogical to me. Why vaccinate yourself when traveling abroad when there's a much greater risk of dying from a heart attack? Moreover, asbestos claims about 150 lives per year (but of course primarily with occupational exposure) while about 250 die in traffic, so the differences are not as large as you seem to think.
Of course, risks should be taken seriously, but one should also be careful in assessing the risks and be aware of what an increase in risk actually means.
I completely understand the concern regarding your son, as one absolutely does not want to expose their children to something that could harm them! But there are considerably more dangerous things he will be exposed to. On the other hand, if you're worried, you could stay at a hotel while the work is ongoing and clean before he comes home again. If you're still worried, that is.
Just as a comparison, do we relate the number of people who die from asbestos-related diseases to the number who die from COPD or lung cancer? About 5200 people die annually from cancer caused by smoking, and 3000 Swedes die from COPD (of those affected, 80% are smokers, which means 600 people die from COPD without having smoked, instead, they might have lived in areas with a lot of smog, smoke, or other air pollution...). Just as a small comparison to put things in perspective....
Hi
Does anyone have any experience with this and perhaps know something more?
Hans
If the apartment doors in the building are fire-rated and installed before ~1970, there may be asbestos in the doors themselves. No idea, however, how common it was to install fireproof apartment doors in the past. But there is no risk if the doors are taken down whole, which they likely will be.
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