The Aussie Adventure: August 2009

Tamworth - Scenic

Here was something cool, the Tamworth Marsupial Park.

Emu's as far as I know are birds and not marsupials.....so why are they in the Park.....?

Lots of Kangaroos. These were just chilling here, but they were free to roam around the park which was cool.

Here is the Golden Guitar.....as Tamworth is the country music capital of NSW. That just meant 90% of the stations were country......bleh.

This is a view overlooking the town. Lots of big flat land.

Tamworth is in the North West of New South Whales. Here is some of the scenery you can see there.

Tamworth - Floor Tile Mastic removal

Here is the entrance from inside the containment. The single black flap is covering a 2 stage decon with a shower that isn't plugged in. I would have gotten pictures of the removal but I didn't want to contaminate my camera and when they are doing the grinding I am not even allowed in the containment.

They actually have 2 different crews. One crew to remove the floor time and one to operate the grinding machines. When they are doing the grnding you can smell it and kind of see a visibile haze around the containment, doesn't make me very happy, but there isn't much I can do about it.

Here is the variety of equitment they will use to remove the floor tile and the mastic.

This is inside the containment. The ground around the edges is not taped down and they are using 2 neg air machines.

This is the top of the containment. Notice the lack of tape and that there are ceiling times removed.

Now this post is not for the faint of heart. Time for the shock of how lax their standards are when it comes to abatement for mechanical floor tile removal (using scrapers and grinders)

Mildura - My first fooray into the interior of Australia

The interior of the country......flat and more flat.

My First Meat Pie in the country, while I was sitting at the Airport in Mildura. Not that bad really.

This is what passes as baggage claim in Mildura. A tractor with a cart attached to it.

Alright here was a trip I took to Mildura. A town in Victoria way inland. It was......interesting......to say the least. I went there to complete Hazmat surveys on two Woolworths stores....they are kind of like Ralphs back home. We have a huge contract with them.

Now Hazmat surveys are a bit different than surveys in the U.S. I look for Asbestos, Lead Paint, PCB's, SMF (like fiberous insulation), and ODS (like refigerants for AC units). So in a way they are more comprehensive than what we do in the U.S. However, they put asbestos in different things down here.

For example I have been told to STOP sampling drywall (or gyp rock as they call it here) because they don't put asbestos in it. What they do have a TON of is cement board, which we dont even use really in the U.S. and it is full of the stuff. Also alot of what looks like fiberglass contains asbestos as well, which is weird to me. They have asbestos in mastic as well, but we will get to the horrors of abatement in a bit.