The Aussie Adventure

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Fibre counting down under

Hey guys,

So fibre counting for asbestos air monitoring is pretty much the same here as it is in the U.S. except for a few big differences.

Slide preparation is a bit different. Instead of a quarter of a filter, they use 1/2 of a filter. They still use acetone and triacitin. I have also learned how to prepare my own cassettes. We reuse all the cassettes here, which is rather annoying and hardly as error free as using new ones, but apparently they don't manafacture them here so they have to ship them in which is really costly. Also since they onoly use low flow pumps and keep them a fair bit back from any containment, I haven't seen more than 5 fibers in a whole slide....its crazy! but then again the volumes are really low since most of the consultants will only run the pumps at around 1.2 lpm, which again isn't going to really capture anything.

They also have some wierd field sheets for the counting, they do it the old fashion way, ticking off boxes. We don't even get to use the clickers!

Another fun aspect of it all is the microscope. It's huge for one, and I've had to lug it onto a plane more than once, which is realllllly fun. The thing is slowly breaking apart since it isnt a travel microscope and they have no microscope boxes. We've had to use a cardboard box with packing penunts and bubble wrap. It got so bad that i went out and bought a big toolbox on wheels that fits the micrscope and lined it with foam so it doesnt break any more than it already has.

Anyway that was a bit of Aussie frustration I was venting.

I hope things are going well over there!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Some of the differences

Above- Asbestos cement sheeting - eaves lining. No stucco....they don't even really use that here.

Above - asbestos concrete sheets hiding some piping.

Alright so there are a wide variety or differences in the asbestos containing materials that are sampled in Australia as compared to what we do in California. Here are some of the differences I've noticed so far.

California Australia
Drywall & J.C. -sampled Drywall ( they call it gyp rock) - not sampled, no ACM
Popcorn ceiling - high ACM Vermiculite (popcorn ceiling) - sampled but never is ACM
Fiberous concrete board - huh? Fiberous concrete board - a lot of ACM here

The fiberous concrete board is called a lot of time over here A/C sheeting. (Asbestos concrete sheeting). I had never even really seen it in the U.S. but it is EVERYWHERE over here. They use it for wall partitions, eaves lining, ceiling lining, roofing......everything. Here are a few pictures

Saturday, August 22, 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.