Asbestos removal stalls remodel
DEAR BARRY: We recently purchased an older home and hired a contractor to remodel the interior. An unexpected expense arose when the contractor found asbestos.
He wants an additional $30,000 for asbestos removal, and this makes the total cost of the project more than we can afford. Is someone accountable for failing to disclose asbestos before we bought the home — the sellers or the home inspector — or are we now stuck with this problem?
— Laurie
DEAR LAURIE: The only way to have known there was asbestos before you purchased the home would have been to hire an asbestos inspector to sample suspect materials and send them to an Environmental Protection Agency-approved lab for analysis.
This is not something that a home inspector would have discovered or reported because environmental hazards are outside the scope of a home inspection. It also is unlikely that the sellers would have known about asbestos in the home unless someone had informed them about it in the past.
Some home inspectors report “possible asbestos content” in materials such as popcorn ceilings or insulation on old heating ducts, but most asbestos materials cannot be identified without laboratory analysis.
Your contractor’s bid of $30,000 seems unusually high, and you did not specify the type of material that needs removal or the method by which the contractor determined that asbestos was present.
Unless asbestos was verified by a qualified testing lab, I would question the findings. If you have a lab report, it would be wise to get additional bids for asbestos removal by a properly licensed asbestos abatement contractor.
ACTION COAST PUBLISHING