Asbestos??

So, I started ripping Daisy apart a bit yesterday. The rock wool in the oven door was GROSS. It was saturated with decades old grease (must have dripped down the oven floor right up to the door seal), so I weighed it and then chucked it in the trash. I really hope that it was genuine rock wool and didn't have any asbestos. It was half cream-colored and half gray, not white, and it made me cough terribly, despite having a face mask on, and using a vacuum cleaner to **** up dust. It was pretty bad. Yuck.

Speaking of asbestos. I saw something that worried me when I was looking around the back of my stove. There are white, compressed fibery panels between the stove frame and the outer colored panels, vaguely reminiscent of lightweight sheetrock. They're about 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick. The edges are pretty friable. I took one look at them and quit right there.

It's looking a whole lot like asbestos board. I spent some time on the web, and asbestos board was very common in stoves of this time period. I had been planning to remove all the panels yesterday, but I won't go near those things without a full-on respirator, and I couldn't find a good one at Home Depot. If they were intact, it wouldn't be quite so bad, but these are kind of beat up on the back edge.

So I'm asking all you stove restorers out there, do all stoves have these, and are they what I think they are? They are not coming into my house if there's even a tiny possibility that they contain asbestos, and considering the time period, it's not unlikely. Any ideas for a suitable replacemment?

The rock wool is just that. Rock wool. Those side panels are indeed asbestos. There is also a gasket between the timer and the front panel that is asbestos, and there may be another if memory serves.

I do not know of any replacement for these. Asbestos is not a problem if it isn't breaking up. Wonder if there is some way to seal these panels so they can't break up? High-temp epoxy coating?

You can get a decent respirator for about $40 at ace hardware. Get one that's approved for volatile organic compounds and it will block almost anything. I spray paint in mine and never get bugged by fumes.

I was figuring that the stuff in the oven door was real rock wool, but the color threw me - obviously 2 different materials. I worried (and still do) that some of it was a retrofit.

I did see the asbestos on the timer. I was suspicious enough that I bagged it up and didn't play with it.

I was afraid that those side panels were asbestos. Major bummer. They're going to have to be replaced. What did everyone else do with their stoves? It's one thing to leave them there without disturbing them, but I am gutting this stove to metal, and have zero interest in putting them back in.

I understand that sealed asbestos is not very risky, but these aren't sealed, and I don't want to play with them. Now I have to find a way to dispose of them safely.

Ugh.

Ditto what Lowracer said, no asbestos in rock wool.Rock wool is just that "rock wool" About 10 months ago this very topic came up and stoveman gave an informative history on it.
Here's the link..........
Uncertain's Stoveman's Rock Wool Info


The other parts I have no idea what so ever.
What does asbestos look like?? And can you tell??

Berlyn

I understand that rock wool is spun mineral/glass fiber, not asbestos. Never doubted it for a minute. Honest.

I was simply expressing concern that what I had found might not BE rock wool because it was very obviously 2 different colors (part was cream-colored, and the upper layer was gray like a stone). In the 50 years since the stove was mode, it is possible that it was replaced at some point, especially if the cook used gallons of oil in every dish, as Daisy's old owner appeared to. Regardless, it's gone now. I'm not concerned about it, other than the fact that you don't want to inhale it, regardless of what it's made of.

What I am extremely concerned about are the side panels. They are asbestos and they're a genuine problem. They are not welcome in my house, and I need to dispose of them in a safe manner.

Isn't anyone else troubled by this? I'm not alarmist by any means, and if it was already in my house and was in an intact/sealed state, it would be OK. But why would I knowingly bring it into my home?

Sorry, Berlyn. I didn't answer your last question.

Asbestos is a white to light gray short, tiny fiber. It often looks like old plaster when you see it used. It has lots of great properties (good insulator, "durable, flexible, highly resistant to heat and chemicals, and virtually indestructible"), so was used all over the place before people realized how dangerous it was. If you have ever seen old pipes or hot water heaters wrapped with a white plaster-like wrapping, then you've likely seen asbestos. It was also used in lots of other things like gaskets, pressed insulation board, brake shoes, siding, cement additive. It's a contaminent in some vermiculite. It's still used in things today - scary. This is a site with obvious ulterior motives, but check out www.asbestosnews.com for more info.

In its intact state, and not in our lungs, it is not dangerous. It is when the product (or its carrier) starts to degrade and release some of those tiny, microscopic fibers into the environment that it becomes a problem. You inhale the dust, and those fibers eventually can cause cancers in the lungs and elsewhere.

In our stoves, the side metal panels are placed over a white compressed board (looks a bit like sheetrock) that Lowracer confirmed was asbestos. You can see them from the back of the stove. , between the timer and the front panel on Model C stoves, there is a gasket that looks like asbestos, as well.

I'll be wearing a full-on respirator (not a dust mask) with the highest particulate rating I can find (99.7% I think) when I take my side panels off. I'll also be doing it outside my home, as the stove is now in a side room - no garage. The insulation board will be replaced with something safer (not sure with what yet).

If you're not taking your stove apart, and you're not disturbing the pressed board, then it's probably not a significant problem, but if you're pulling things apart, then you have to be very careful. Ditto if the panels look a bit ragged on the edges, as mine do.

I'm not even sure why those asbestos panels are on there. The oven is so well insulated, and one of them is on the side with the service cabinet, it's not even hot over there. So maybe it's OK to just omit them. Anyone care to comment on that radical notion?

Anyway this is the respirator I wear when working with lead dust or asbestos or paint fumes. The little white dust masks are not sufficient:

http://img192.echo.cx/img192/8609/dsc005826oo.jpg

It's not very fashionable when in use, trust me. But it will keep you alive a bit longer.

<font color="#FFFFFF" size="1">[ December 07, 2005 10:18 PM: Message edited by: lowracer ]</font>

Vacuum cleaners s-u-c-k up material. I can understand actual swearing being screened out, but this is just silly.

My personal observation is that I've only found those panels described in a few (not all) of the Model C's I've ripped down, and never in a Model B. Maybe it was something Chambers started doing later in the C line.

I wouldn't get too freaked about it - just dispose of them, and if you feel they're necessary, replace with regular insulation. But I agree with Lowracer that they were somewhat redundant.

The bright side of this picture is that by comparison to other stoves of this era, Chambers used very, very little asbestos in their stoves.

Nice respirator, Lowracer! Very spiffy. Healthy trumps fashion every time. I'll look at Ace as you suggested.

It's interesting that these panels are only found in some Cs. Kind of odd, though. Why would Chambers add something that wasn't needed? A cool space doesn't need insulation, as Lowracer pointed out. Strange. I wonder if they put it in to make the stove more solid-sounding. Without the pressed board, the sound when the sides is hit must be a bit hollow or tinny. Sort of like the way a cheap car sounds when you close the door, versus something pricier like a Mercedes. Solid.

Will the metal side panels still fit snugly if I eliminate the insulation board? It's tempting to just skip replacing them if I don't really need them.