Asbestos Testing

Bromeliad try this link I found it in a Google Search re asbestos in Canada: Link To Testing Sites In Canada

Thanks, but that's for a company in NJ.

There are cheap home test kits available in the US, but you have to mail sample back to a US lab. I think there might be problems mailing the sample across the border (I guess I could call the company that sells the kit to ask).

I have not yet found any DIY home test kits for sale from Canadian web sites.

What makes it all harder is the fact that there is a town in Quebec called Asbestos, making searching that much more difficult.

Maybe Canada is like some parts of the US Asbestos is naturally emitted from the ground. San Francisco and Washington, D.C., both have high levels of asbestos that occurs in the air naturally.

Sorry that I could only find the NJ company but I searched and searched and could not find anything for Canada.

Maybe you could try contacting a univirsity geology department. In the US we have the Geologic Service, USGS, that keeps track asbestos stuff.

Asbestos was mined in Quebec. The house most likely has asbestos insulation, it was very common - especially in the east. I have no idea who to contact in the province though.

Yep. That's what I figured.

And apparently the stuff is 'all over the place'.
And my 20-yr old niece living there.

Yikes.

Asbestos is fine if it's concealed within a wall, what makes it dangerous is removing it and dislodging particles. They'd be better to pump in new insulation over the old as opposed to taking it out.
The popcorn ceiling is just a paint technique to cover walls and ceilings that are not perfectly square or if there are any unsightly imperfections. It's perfectly harmless but uglier than sin.

I plumbed the depths of my brain (boy,is it scary down there) and remembered the name of a major hardware chain in Canada, Rona. I went to their website and posted my question there.

Wish meluck, please.

Good Luck

testing
hello there i am from canada, did you get info on testing, need some help

gollan, I posted on our thread. Its easy doing asbestos testing with a portable xray flourescence(XRF). Anybody can learn to use this in a few minutes, just follow directions.
for the bromeliad I suggesttha you have your sister vaccuum a sample onto a filter paper or HEPA filter by wetting it and rubber banding it around the exhauset of the vacuum. (Or if the vaccum i sa HEPA just put in a clean bag. Go around to walls and everywhere where this fluff is found and hoover it up. Take it to a University geology department and tell the mineralogists to run an XRAY DiFFRACTION of the stuff on the filter. The machine has a print out of the "d" spaings of the minerals found and will compute a percentage that is asbestos . AND, itll give you the exact kinds of asbestos

Quebec asbestos is usually from Thetford Mines and is antigorite, lizardite, chrysotile, amosite and a minor few others (mostly asbestos "like" minerals)