On-site asbestos testing involves careful examination and inspection of certain materials in your home by a team of qualified professionals. Do a physical inspection of your entire room first using a visual inspection. Then have laboratory technicians examine the samples and then carefully test pieces of the suspicious material to determine asbestos concentration. If you think that there is even a slight possibility that there might be traces of asbestos in your home, you must have this analyzed by experts immediately. Asbestos testing and removal can cost a fortune so you need to be sure about what the situation is and what you are being exposed to.
On-site asbestos testing uses air sampling as one of its methods of determining the presence of asbestos. Using an air sampling machine, the amount of asbestos dust can be collected and the depth of its distribution can be determined. The machines usually work for a few seconds but it can take much longer depending on the length of time your sample remains airborne. As long as the asbestos sample remains intact during the whole time of air sampling, the results will be relatively accurate. However, you must be sure that you take the samples at the most appropriate places to get a perfect sample.
For those homeowners who fear they might have been exposed to some asbestos fibers while working with this building material, on-site asbestos testing is still very useful. Here, certified professionals can manually collect the samples from rooms where there have been substantial breakthroughs in asbestos exposure such as chimneys and attics. By this method, you can be assured that the samples you are gathering are really from the areas where there are likely to be more dangerous traces of asbestos. Moreover, the sample collection is much easier and more convenient since you don’t have to run around gathering samples all over your house.
If the area you’re testing doesn’t have enough samples for manual collection, the best option for you is to bring in the machines used for high-pressure air sampling. This way, the ceiling, and the floors tiles will be sampled thoroughly and effectively. The sample collection process itself isn’t very difficult but it does require a great deal of preparation and cleaning on your part.
If the attic or a basement in older homes has accumulated a lot of asbestos fibers that are yet unreachable by humans, then you also have an option for safe testing. You can bring in the sample of ceiling and floor tiles separately. However, since the materials are already contaminated, the results of this test may not be very accurate. It is better to wait for more accurate tests to confirm the presence of asbestos in older homes.
When testing for the presence of asbestos, it is also important to know how the fibers spread when they enter your home and how they accumulate. For this reason, it would be of great help if you had an expert examine the area where you think the asbestos might be found to assess the extent of your exposure to the substance. For example, if you think that you’re exposed to a certain amount of asbestos fibers daily, then you might not have much to worry about.