Covering Up Asbestos is the Reason it is a Problem

Covering Up Asbestos is the Reason it is a Problem

Published by Remtech Environmental Team · Last updated April 2025

When you are in the middle of an exciting renovation project for your home, the last thing you want to blow your budget on is removing asbestos. We understand how tempting it would be to paint over and simply pretend it’s not there.

Here’s the most important renovation tip you’ll receive: don’t cover up asbestos.

Over 60% of DIYers report having been exposed to asbestos in renovation projects and self-containment.

In fact, DIY’ers exposing themselves to asbestos has become so common that it is considered the “third wave” of asbestos-related diseases. The first wave was miners and transport workers in the mid 1800s where production of asbestos was at its peak during the Industrial Revolution. The second wave was workers using asbestos products from the 1930s through the 1960s until the Clean Air Act passed in the 70s.

Covering up asbestos is a temporary fix and not a good one. Paint and sealants that can be purchased at hardware stores or online might delay the threat of asbestos, but it certainly does not remove it from your home. If at any point in the future you cut or drill the painted asbestos you will expose your entire home. There are no DIY containment measures once asbestos fibers are airborne, and the cost is significantly higher than if it was removed properly the first time.

THE ASBESTOS REMOVAL PROCESS

Safely removing asbestos is a complicated process. Watch this quick video to see everything that goes into it:

Even without intentional cutting or drilling, over time paint dries and cracks and this can cause the asbestos fibers underneath to become friable (to crumble and be reduced to powder), thus becoming airborne within your home.

WATCH: Asbestos Abatement Services in North Carolina.

Walk through any neighborhood built between 1940 and 1985 in Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, or Winston-Salem and you are almost certainly walking past asbestos. It is in popcorn ceilings, vinyl floor mastic, pipe insulation, and the joint compound and textured wall coatings in countless mid-century ranches across the Piedmont. For decades, the prevailing strategy among homeowners and even some contractors has been to paint over it, drop a new ceiling beneath it, or simply ignore it until the next renovation forces a decision. That approach is the single biggest reason asbestos remains a public health problem today and will continue to harm North Carolina families for decades to come. Encapsulation by paint or sealant is not abatement. It is a delay mechanism that transfers cost and risk to the next owner or the next remodeler. This article explains why covering up asbestos fails, what licensed abatement actually looks like under NCDHHS Health Hazards Control Unit rules, and what the legal exposure looks like when a sale or renovation triggers disclosure.

Why Painting and Sealing Are Not Real Solutions

Future Renovations Are When the Bill Comes Due

Every painted-over asbestos ceiling, every encapsulated pipe wrap, and every entombed vinyl floor is a deferred liability waiting for a triggering event. In the Triangle and the Triad, the most common triggers are kitchen and bathroom remodels, finished-basement conversions, post-storm repairs, and pre-sale cosmetic upgrades. None of these projects can be completed without disturbing the encapsulated material. A general contractor cutting a recessed-light hole through a 1972 popcorn ceiling has just released friable asbestos into the conditioned airspace of the home. A plumber sweating a copper joint next to encapsulated pipe insulation has just heated the binding matrix and aerosolized fibers. A flooring crew using a rotary scraper on encapsulated 9x9 vinyl tile has just generated millions of respirable fibers per cubic foot of work-zone air. These are not hypotheticals. They are the documented exposure scenarios that make residential renovation workers one of the higher-risk modern populations for mesothelioma and asbestosis, decades after primary industrial use ended. The cost of dealing with disturbed asbestos mid-renovation is dramatically higher than dealing with it before a project starts. Crews demobilize. Containment must be erected after the fact, often around already-installed materials. Air clearance testing is required before re-occupancy. Contaminated tools, drop cloths, and HVAC components frequently must be disposed of as regulated waste. Insurance carriers may deny coverage for project delays. What would have been a 2,500 to 8,000 dollar pre-renovation abatement on a typical Wake County home routinely balloons to 15,000 to 40,000 dollars when discovered mid-project. Encapsulation also creates a documentation problem. North Carolina real estate disclosure law requires sellers to report known material defects. Buyers, inspectors, and their attorneys are increasingly sophisticated about asbestos. A buyer who learns that a previous owner painted over a popcorn ceiling rather than abating it has grounds to renegotiate, demand escrow holdbacks, or walk from the deal entirely. Sellers who fail to disclose known encapsulation can face post-closing claims for the full cost of professional removal plus consequential damages.

What Proper Asbestos Abatement Looks Like in North Carolina

Licensed abatement in North Carolina is regulated under 15A NCAC 19C, administered by the NCDHHS Health Hazards Control Unit. Before any work begins, a North Carolina-accredited asbestos inspector collects bulk samples and submits them to an NVLAP-accredited laboratory for polarized light microscopy analysis. If samples test above one percent asbestos by weight, the material is regulated. The next step is a written abatement plan that addresses containment, work practices, personal protective equipment, waste handling, and clearance. On the day of work, a licensed abatement contractor establishes a containment zone with six-mil polyethylene sheeting on all openings, a decontamination chamber with separate clean and dirty rooms, and a HEPA-filtered negative air machine that maintains the work area at a minimum negative pressure differential relative to surrounding occupied spaces. Workers wear half-face or full-face respirators with P100 cartridges and disposable Tyvek suits. The asbestos-containing material is wetted with amended water to suppress fiber release, removed in manageable sections, and bagged in two layers of leak-tight, labeled six-mil polyethylene. Waste leaves the site under an EPA-compliant manifest and is disposed of at a permitted Class III landfill licensed to accept regulated asbestos-containing material. Before containment is taken down, an independent third-party industrial hygienist performs aggressive air sampling. Fans are run inside the containment to dislodge any settled fibers. Air cassettes are collected and analyzed by phase contrast microscopy or transmission electron microscopy depending on project type. Only when fiber counts come back below 0.01 fibers per cubic centimeter is the area cleared for re-occupancy. This is the standard. It is the standard for a reason. It is also the standard that protects homeowners from the kind of liability that follows uncontrolled fiber release into a family home. Anything less, including a paint job, is not abatement.

Schedule Licensed Asbestos Inspection and Abatement

Remtech Environmental holds North Carolina Asbestos Inspection and Abatement Contractor accreditations and serves homeowners, property managers, and general contractors across the Triangle and the Triad. If you are planning a renovation in a home built before 1985 and want a pre-project inspection, our team performs bulk sampling, NVLAP-accredited laboratory analysis, and written abatement scoping. If a recent project has already disturbed suspect material, we can mobilize containment and emergency abatement crews to protect occupants and clear the structure. Visit our asbestos abatement service page for licensing details and project examples, our Raleigh and Durham service area pages for response coverage in Wake and Durham counties, and our Greensboro and Winston-Salem pages for Guilford and Forsyth response. We work directly with homeowners and coordinate with general contractors, real estate agents, and insurance adjusters when prior remediation work needs review.

Key Takeaways

• Paint and consumer-grade sealants do not stop asbestos fibers; they delay disturbance and transfer risk to future owners and remodelers.
• North Carolina regulates asbestos work under 15A NCAC 19C and requires licensed inspectors and abatement contractors for any material above one percent asbestos.
• Future renovations, post-storm repairs, and pre-sale upgrades almost always disturb encapsulated material, releasing fibers and triggering emergency abatement costs three to ten times higher than planned removal.
• North Carolina disclosure law and case precedent give buyers grounds to recover damages from sellers who concealed encapsulated asbestos rather than abating it.
• Proper abatement requires containment, negative air, HEPA filtration, wet methods, manifested waste disposal, and third-party clearance air sampling below 0.01 fibers per cubic centimeter.