Asbestos testing kits can be purchased from almost everywhere these days, including the Internet. But do they really work? And are the results reliable? Admittedly, the available do it yourself methods have one positive thing in common. They all seem to be rather inexpensive. But in my opinion the negatives outweigh the money argument.
Should you have asbestos testing done in your house? Especially if your home was built prior to 1970, there is a good chance that some of the areas, such as wall insulation, floor tiling, the roof and siding, might contain this potentially hazardous material.
Asbestos itself, according to the opinion of many experts, is not a dangerous material. The problem is that over course of time, it starts to wear off and it might get damaged. That is when microscopically small dust particles and fibers get airborne and are likely to be inhaled be anybody that lives in close proximity. Once the toxic substance gets into the respiratory system, a person might be at a high risk of developing an asbestos induced disease, such as asbestosis, mesothelioma and certain forms of lung cancers.
It is important to understand, that all of the aforementioned illnesses are known for their long latency period. In other words, the majority of people who got in contact with asbestos at some point in their lives, do not exhibit any symptoms before many years or even decades have passed.
Here is another aspect that needs to be taken into consideration. If you choose to purchase an all-in-one kit, you need to check beforehand if the price also covers the laboratory fees. That is right; the kit itself does not come with an actual testing method. You will probably get a few little plastic containers or plastic bags, a bunch of labels and tiny spatulas, all for the purpose of collecting samples. But then you still have to send everything to a specialized asbestos testing lab to get the actual testing done. With some of the test kits, the costs for the labs are covered by the purchase price. But for others you have to pay extra for the lab work.
In sum: I am a homeowner myself and I like to do as much as possible on my house without having somebody hired. However, asbestos testing is a task where I would draw the line. I would much rather hire and pay a professional testing company and have them carried out the job safely and get a reliable test report back than dealing with a do-it-yourself asbestos testing kit.
