A long time ago, the substance known as asbestos was once hailed as the “miracle material”, largely due to its great insulation and fireproofing qualities, as well as its cheap cost. Fortunately for everyone, long gone are the days when we used asbestos to build everything, from houses and buildings to other such significant structures in cities and large areas.
In our current modern times, asbestos is now nothing more than an extremely hazardous material that everyone should be careful of and stay away from at all costs. This is especially important if you suspect that your house may be contaminated with asbestos, which can easily become dangerous and even lethal.
Having asbestos located anywhere in your house means that there is a potential, however small or large, that you might get exposed to it, which therefore puts you and everyone in your home at a dangerous risk of getting several of the diseases that are linked to it.
These effects and complications can range from permanent scarring to grave diseases such as asbestosis and terminal cancer.
What does this mean for you then? Well, if your house (or a house that belongs to anyone else you might know) in Australia was built in the time of the 1940s up to the years of the early 2000s, then it is in your wisest and safest bet to go ahead and have it thoroughly and properly inspected for asbestos by trained professionals.
This way, you can more easily think of and devise a formal strategic plan on what the best and safest way to avoid getting exposed to asbestos would be, or better yet, have it removed from your house entirely.
1. Stick to companies that offer inspection services only and exclusively
If you’re not yet sure whether your aged house from the early or late 90s has asbestos in its walls and structures or not, you always have the simple and available option of asking your landlord or at least, the former owner of the house if the property you currently own and live in already has an existing asbestos register.
An asbestos register refers to a legal document that details how much asbestos is in your house and the exact locations where the material is present.
If it turns out that your house does not in fact have an asbestos register yet, it is only wise to have your property inspected immediately. And the first step in the process to this is to look for the right asbestos inspection company for your house.
Be wary of companies that offer the services of both asbestos inspection and asbestos removal. Those types of companies is often where you’ll run into a serious conflict of interest from the get go. To avoid complications or getting overcharged, it is much better to stick with just inspection for the time being.
There is a mighty good chance that the company that offers both services will inspect the property and afterwards whip up a report that would highly favour their other business, which is asbestos removal. And that’s exactly the sort of thing that you don’t want to happen.
Here’s another thing to watch out for: “asbestos inspection companies” that exhibit other duties, like websites or pages that offer additional services that are unrelated to asbestos, such as things like pest extermination and plumbing.
Save yourself some time and money and stay away from these companies. Before you sign any papers, take the time to really sit down and think your decision through. Naturally, you would want what’s best for the welfare of your family, your home, and of course yourself. So it’s only appropriate that you take the time to follow these important steps into hiring an asbestos inspection company.
2. If you think you found a good one, run a proper and thorough background check
Once you come across an inspection company that looks legitimate and official, the next step is to see how good or professional the company is. And though it may sound daunting, it’s actually really easy to pull off.
Just visit their websites or their social media pages and look for accreditations or any recent awards from the governing bodies.
It would also be wise to look for testimonials from their past clients. Keep in mind that a service has to be incredibly good for an individual or set of individuals to take the time to write up a well thought of testimonial on a company’s social media profiles or website pages.
If you’re not satisfied with the testimonials that you’ve found posted on their pages, you can perhaps personally message a past client and confirm just how good or bad the service they experienced was.
Make sure to ask lots of questions! Ask things such as how many days did it take for them to finish the job? Or how much was the asbestos inspection VIC cost? This is your chance to get the inside details and unbiased information, so don’t hesitate to ask a lot!
3. Make sure the inspectors are one hundred percent trained and certified
Since asbestos is a very hazardous material, it must be handled with extreme caution, seriousness, and be overseen only by professionals that underwent training and a series of certifications.
So before you ask for quotations from any of your prospective companies, don’t forget to ask them whether their inspectors are certified, trained, (or both!) or not. Don’t be afraid to ask; after all, it is an SOP in this industry.
Having a certified inspector take over the job and do it well and properly will help assure you and give you the confidence that the asbestos in your house or commercial building will be handled professionally.
Once you’re sure that the company employs certified inspectors only, you can then proceed to the quotations and then finally, sign an agreement!
