Effects of Scraping Acoustic Cottage Cheese Ceiling
May 21 2007The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector
Dear Barry: Our home was built in 1978 and, until recently, had acoustic “cottage cheese” ceilings. My friend helped to scrape off the ceiling texture and a week later developed a sore throat. Now he fears that he has been adversely affected by breathing asbestos. Is this a valid concern? Amy
Dear Amy: Scraping a 1978 ceiling without having it tested for asbestos was not a wise course of action. However, there are no short-term health effects associated with asbestos exposure. The only documented cases of asbestos related disease involve people who were subject to repeated, long-term exposure. The damaging effects attributed to asbestos are lung cancer, asbestosis, and mesothelioma.
Your friend’s recent sore throat is not likely to be asbestos-related.
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Not necessarily – the asbestosis can show up as a partial complication if someone already has compromised health. My father worked with asbestos for about 1 week in the mid 60’s and now, 40 years later, he has developed some growths in his lungs that have been attributed to asbestosis. And yes, he has seen several specialists.
I always am concerned when someone says there are no ’short-term’ health problems, yet when I’ve seen professionals remove asbestos from a building next to where I worked, they were in full hazmat suits to do so.
I would almost suggest that this person get the rest of their house inspected for asbestos, so that they would know if it were a problem in later renos. Asbestos can live in tiles/ door jams and ceilings, so if it *was* in the ceiling, it could be elsewhere.. which would mean they would have to take precautions if doing any further updates.