A Through Inspection?

If the seller or the buyer requires a number of samples to tested, or he/she requires a through inspection be done on the house, it may be more economical to request an AHERA survey, or AHERA inspection from Seattle Asbestos Test, so that every parts of the house than may contain asbestos be throughly inspected.

INTRODUCTION TO AHERA INSPECTION

AHERA stands for Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act.

In 1986, the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA; Asbestos Containing Materials in Schools, 40 CFR Part 763, Subpart E) was signed into law as Title II of TSCA.

Amendments to the act in 1994 mandated specific training and "accreditation" for all individuals doing inspection, project design, project supervision, and project work involving asbestos in schools, public and commercial buildings.

An AHERA inspector is one who's obtained the AHERA Building Inspector accreditation. With only minor exceptions, you must be an AHERA accredited inspector to take even one sample of an asbestos-containing product. Most often, an AHERA inspection is required when there's a need for renovation or demolition.

Renovations

Conduct an asbestos survey. With the exception of limited residential projects performed by the resident-owner, all surveys must be conducted by an AHERA-certified building inspector. AHERA stands for Asbestos Hazardous Emergency Response Act. If there are no suspect materials in the work area, this must be posted or communicated in writing to contractors working in the area.

Demolition

Surveys must be conducted by an AHERA-certified building inspector. You will find these inspectors listed in the phone book yellow pages under �Asbestos Consulting and Testing.?You must share the survey results with your demolition contractor and anyone else who may come in contact with the material, and keep a copy of the survey on site.

THE SCOPE OF AN AHERA INSPECTION

In addition to basic information about the property, the owner(s), the technical aspects of an AHERA inspection will include the following.

Material classification

There are three main kinds of material according to EPA sampling guidelines. They are Surfacing Material, Thermal system Insulation, and Miscellaneous material. The classification bears implications for number of samples to be taken. For Surfacing material, there's the 3-5-7 rule, meaning 3 samples from less than 1,000 square feet area, 5 samples from 1,000 to 5,000 square feet area, and 7 samples from greater than 5,000 square feet area. For Thermal system material, with some exceptions, 3 samples should be taken for each homogeneous area. For Miscellaneous material, at least one sample should be taken from each homogeneous material.

Recognition of Homogeneous Areas

Homogeneous material means an area of surfacing material, thermal system insulation material or miscellaneous material that is uniform in color and texture. It should be pointed out that materials appear to be homogeneous and adjacent to each other may in fact have different contents in terms of asbestos, and only laboratory testing will decide whether they are really the same homogeneous area.

Differentiation of Friable vs. Non friable

A material that contains asbestos is friable if the material, when dry, may be crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder by hand pressure, and includes previously non-friable material after such previous nonfriable material becomes damaged to the extent that it meets the criteria as a friable material.

THE BENEFIT OF HIRING AN INSPECTOR FROM SEATTLE ASBESTOS TEST

Our inspector follows strict rules as required BY current regulations, so that there's no short-cut to the Standard AHERA Inspection Procedures. We will take enough samples depending on the type and size of the material as required by law, so that there's be no shortage of samples we take.

We have the quickest response team among our inspectors, and they provide the homeowner or the contractors hiring them the prompt testing results and reports. In order to keep our clients informed, we will inform them of the laboratory analytical results before the Inpection report is out. In doing so, we will be able to give clients a preliminary assessment fairly quick, normally the next day following the on-site sampling. It's possible for us to provide our clients with the fast results, because our samples are analyzed in house in our own laboratory, unlike in many cases the samples have to be sent out by the inspector to a outside lab such as ours for the sample testing.

Many regulatory bodies required the samples to be analyzed by an accredited laboratory, so that the results are trust-worthy. Our lab carries the highest form of accreditation, the EPA approved NVLAP Accreditations.