Asbestos and Your Pets: Ensuring a Safe Environment for Furry Friends
We are at risk of many illnesses that don’t affect our pets, but asbestos-related illnesses are ones that we share. According to studies, dogs exposed to asbestos can be at risk of mesothelioma. If you’re considering house renovations involving the exposure and removal of asbestos, you need to protect not just your family but also your pets. We’ve included some helpful tips for ensuring a safe environment for your furry friends below:
Identify Asbestos
You can’t hope to protect your loved ones and pets from asbestos if you don’t know where it is. That’s why identifying asbestos is the most crucial step in ensuring a safe environment for your pets. When you know where it is in your home, you can take active steps to ensure it’s not accessible for curious animals.
Fortunately, identifying asbestos doesn’t require you to be an asbestos expert. Sure, some asbestos-containing materials (ACM) are easy to spot, like Super Six roofing and popcorn ceilings. However, it can be lurking in the most unexpected places. As a result, testing should be more of a lab process than a visual inspection.
Asbestos testing is something you can arrange without having to lift a finger. After contacting an asbestos removal company, they can arrive at your property and take care of it for you. Asbestos testing and sampling involves surveyors taking a sample of material thought to contain asbestos. Once collected, asbestos removalists send it to a lab for analysis and reporting. You can then learn how much asbestos is in a specific material and its condition.
Having this information can be invaluable. If you learn you have friable asbestos in a common area, you can block off that area from your family – including your pets – and arrange for its safe removal.
Review Your Options
Learning that you have damaged or exposed asbestos materials in your home in an area your pets can access can be overwhelming. Most responsible pet owners will do everything possible to keep their pets safe!
Therefore, it’s essential to review your options without delay. These can include leaving it, encapsulating it, covering it, or removing it. We’ll cover each option in more detail below.
Leaving Asbestos
Leaving asbestos may not seem like a suitable option for pet owners, but it all depends on the asbestos’s condition and location and your future plans. Your local asbestos removal company may recommend leaving asbestos if it’s in excellent condition and you intend to maintain it so it can remain that way.
For example, a homeowner with a popcorn ceiling and no renovation plans may see leaving it as the best option. Their pets can’t access their ceiling, and its paint and texture are in excellent condition.
Encapsulating Asbestos
Asbestos encapsulation involves applying a sealant to an ACM to provide a protective layer between the material and you. Asbestos removalists often see encapsulation as a suitable option when removing asbestos provides an increased exposure risk. They may also recommend it for its cost-effectiveness and when your asbestos materials are in excellent condition.
Covering Asbestos
Similar to encapsulation, covering asbestos involves placing a new building material over the top of the older asbestos-containing material. This option is exceptionally popular with flooring. If you have asbestos vinyl, you can place boards over the top before adding your new flooring material of choice. Future homeowners then only have to remove one layer of safe flooring for upgrades and renovations in the future.
Removing Asbestos
Leaving asbestos, encapsulating it, or covering it won’t always be suitable when you’re trying to maintain a safe home environment for your pets. Sometimes, asbestos removal is the most effective option.
This is especially true when any ACM in your home is in poor condition and easily accessible by curious pets and young children. When ACM is cracked, broken, cut, or damaged in any way, removal can give you a clean slate to work from.
Are Some Animals More At Risk Than Others?
Just as some humans are more at risk of mesothelioma than others due to their previous work history, some animals can also be more at risk than others. Dogs are generally more at risk than cats. Some dog species are also more likely to develop the canine version of mesothelioma. Irish Setters and German Shepherds are among the most high-risk breeds.
Older dogs are also more at risk due to the latency period of mesothelioma. That latency period in humans is 10-50 years but can be around eight years on average in dogs. However, mesothelioma has also been diagnosed in puppies as young as seven weeks and as old as 15.
It’s Time to Take Care of Your Pets
We know that asbestos is hazardous for our health, but it’s also dangerous for our pets. If you know your home contains asbestos, now could be the right time to take action. Talk to your local asbestos removal company like Chemcare to learn your options for enjoying a safer home for all.