Siding t11 or masonite

[merle]

home built 1990 appears to have t11 compoist siding, does it have the waffle texture on the back?  Or is it masonite? Does either contain asbestos?  Very concerned Thanks

[Bill Kibbel]

"T1-11" is a plywood product.  I've heard of some manufactured from OSB, but I've never seen it.  There's a type that while the base is plywood, hardboard is laminated to the surface.  Some folks refer to hardboard as Masonite.  I don't know of any served with waffles.  A home built in 1990 in the US is not likely to have asbestos containing building materials.

[hausdok]

Hi, welcome.

You came to the right place for answers. First, let's address your concerns about asbestos.

It's unlikely that a home built in 1990 will be constructed with asbestos-containing products. By the 1990s, product manufacturers had known for about two decades the hazards associated with asbestos and most, wanting to avoid any lawsuits, were no longer manufacturing asbestos-containing products. For instance, asbestos-cement siding shingles that were very hard and smooth were sold for a few decades after WW2 with their fireproof characteristics emphasized. After medical researchers connected asbestos to cancer in the sixties, the EPA began limiting its use in the seventies and the formula was changed to eliminate asbestos completely. The new product is an exact match to the old asbestos-cement shingles but is safe and is sold today to people wishing to repair the asbestos-cement shingles on their homes. 

Asbestos is still legal today in the US, except for its use in five products, flooring felt, roll-board, commercial paper, corrugated paper and specialty paper. The EPA attempted a complete ban in 1989, but that ban was lifted in 1991. Efforts are still underway by the EPA to reinitiate a complete ban. So, it's unlikely but not impossible for the home to contain some product that has some asbestos content, but it might not even be the home, it could be another product in the home like a hand-held hairdryer made in someplace where they aren't too concerned about product safety, like China.

Now, to your siding. You didn't mention whether there are any issues with it other than your concern about whether it contained asbestos. There was a Louisiana-Pacific siding product from the nineties that was very popular. The stuff is generally referred to as "L-P Siding" in the construction business. It was oriented strand board (OSB) with a thin facing bonded to it. I can't recall what the facing was, but it was mere hundreds of an inch thick - vinyl maybe(?). It came in horizontal lap siding of several patterns and 4 X 8 sheets in a T1-11 pattern. Weyerhaeuser made a similar product composed of a fine hardboard, more like MDF (medium density fiberboard).

Neither product contained asbestos, but both companies experienced recalls when the product began absorbing moisture, rotted, and failed. At the time L-P's customers were awarded damages (early 1996), it was the biggest lawsuit awarded in US history. The lawsuit against Weyerhaeuser was also huge, but that came years later, and granting of the award was more rigidly limited. I guess Weyerhaeuser had better lawyers. However, unless the siding on your home is absorbing water, swelling and delaminating and/or rotting, there's no point in diving down that rabbit hole, just understand that the claims period for both lawsuits, plus the product warranties, have expired. Any chance of initiating a claim now and receiving an award are nil. 

L-P still makes a version (Or did the last time I looked for it) but it's different than the stuff from the nineties because it's primed on the back and made with a waxier formula in the base OSB that makes it less likely to absorb water and delaminate, and it also contains borate so it's more fungal resistant and less liable to rot.

I hope we've answered all of your questions. 

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[merle]

Hi Mike, thanks for the reply back, I'm sure it's the masonite siding with the inside that's looks like soft wafer board with the backing being waffle texture, I was reading masonite was sued in the 80s and 90s for rotting,did they add asbestos? Have you had any positive tests come back for it? Thanks!

[Les]

20 hours ago, merle said:

Hi Mike, thanks for the reply back, I'm sure it's the masonite siding with the inside that's looks like soft wafer board with the backing being waffle texture, I was reading masonite was sued in the 80s and 90s for rotting,did they add asbestos? Have you had any positive tests come back for it? Thanks!

Merle, No, no and no.  Please do some more reading.  Furthermore, you can not prove a negative.  

[merle]

20 minutes ago, Les said:

Merle, No, no and no.  Please do some more reading.  Furthermore, you can not prove a negative.  

What do you mean? I don't understand. No it doesn't? Or possible? Thanks

[merle]

18 minutes ago, merle said:

What do you mean? I don't understand. No it doesn't? Or possible? Thanks

Les, please reply..thank you

[merle]

50 minutes ago, merle said:

Les, please reply..thank you

I'm worried what did you mean Les? Thank you

[Jerry Simon]

3 hours ago, merle said:

I'm worried what did you mean Les? Thank you

Yes, please, else I won't be able to sleep tonight. . .

[hausdok]

No, as Les said, Masonite siding didn't contain any asbestos. Even if it did, so what? Are you standing around rubbing it with course sandpaper to create dust and then inhaling it? No. It's painted. Even if it were the old asbestos-cement siding, it's no threat to you after it's painted UNLESS you do something to it to create dust, like sand it. Nobody tests for asbestos on site, especially when it involves stuff they have no reason to suspect contains asbestos.

Jeez, I'm sorry to be so blunt, but get this f*****g idea that you're in danger of asbestosis poisoning out of your head. The stuff is and has been around us 24/7/365 for decades and one hardly hears about anyone getting cancer or mesothelioma from it because the numbers of people that actually do are so small. Even then, it's mostly people who had been exposed to large amounts of the stuff every day for many years because they worked with it or around it and breathed that dust in constantly. I don't go around worrying every day whether I'll come down with MS, but if I do I don't think there will have been anything I could have done to stop it, it just happens.

Every time you drive down the interstate there are most-probably microscopic asbestos particles flowing through the air that passes into and out of the interior of your car, because asbestos was used in brakes and as one applies their brakes the friction causes the pads or shoes to wear and be reduced to dust that is deposited along the highway. EVERYONE driving down that highway is exposed to it. Now that you know that what are you going to do, wear a space suit with a contained and filtered breathing apparatus whenever you drive? No, you won't because you realize that would be pointless.

If you visit a friend that lives in an old house and he or she has a forced hot air heating system and tells you all of the asbestos sealing the outside of the heating ducts has been abated, take that with a grain of salt because, yes, they might abate the asbestos on the outside of the system but not realize that the frayed tape on the inside of the ducts which is sealing the joints contains asbestos. Do you see now what I'm talking about?

I once spotted that frayed tape inside a duct in a 1940s house I was inspecting, pointed it out to my client and recommended that, if he bought the house, that he cover it with some latex-based duct mastic so he could minimize exposure. As we moved on, about a minute after I'd explained that to him, we heard a thunk, turned, and saw that the guy's wife had passed out and fallen face first on the floor. She'd heard me tell him about the asbestos-containing duct tape and, like a ninny, had held her breath until she passed out.

There is a town north of here in my own state where the ground is rife with asbestos because it's exposed on the surface in fields. If it were the bogeyman everybody thinks it is, the hospitals here would be full of people that got sick after driving up and down that interstate every day.

The EPA and lawyers who're making a fortune by suing companies due to clients who've contracted mesothelioma or asbestosis, are blowing this asbestos thing out of proportion when the truth is there is no way on earth to completely eliminate one's exposure short of the silly space suit description I used above. You have a far higher likelihood of dying from a car accident or falling down the stairs than you do getting sick from minimal asbestos exposure. Stop dwelling on it and live your life worry-free.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[merle]

3 hours ago, hausdok said:

No, as Les said, Masonite siding didn't contain any asbestos. Even if it did, so what? Are you standing around rubbing it with course sandpaper to create dust and then inhaling it? No. It's painted. Even if it were the old asbestos-cement siding, it's no threat to you after it's painted UNLESS you do something to it to create dust, like sand it. Nobody tests for asbestos on site, especially when it involves stuff they have no reason to suspect contains asbestos.

Jeez, I'm sorry to be so blunt, but get this f*****g idea that you're in danger of asbestosis poisoning out of your head. The stuff is and has been around us 24/7/365 for decades and one hardly hears about anyone getting cancer or mesothelioma from it because the numbers of people that actually do are so small. Even then, it's mostly people who had been exposed to large amounts of the stuff every day for many years because they worked with it or around it and breathed that dust in constantly. I don't go around worrying every day whether I'll come down with MS, but if I do I don't think there will have been anything I could have done to stop it, it just happens.

Every time you drive down the interstate there are most-probably microscopic asbestos particles flowing through the air that passes into and out of the interior of your car, because asbestos was used in brakes and as one applies their brakes the friction causes the pads or shoes to wear and be reduced to dust that is deposited along the highway. EVERYONE driving down that highway is exposed to it. Now that you know that what are you going to do, wear a space suit with a contained and filtered breathing apparatus whenever you drive? No, you won't because you realize that would be pointless.

If you visit a friend that lives in an old house and he or she has a forced hot air heating system and tells you all of the asbestos sealing the outside of the heating ducts has been abated, take that with a grain of salt because, yes, they might abate the asbestos on the outside of the system but not realize that the frayed tape on the inside of the ducts which is sealing the joints contains asbestos. Do you see now what I'm talking about?

I once spotted that frayed tape inside a duct in a 1940s house I was inspecting, pointed it out to my client and recommended that, if he bought the house, that he cover it with some latex-based duct mastic so he could minimize exposure. As we moved on, about a minute after I'd explained that to him, we heard a thunk, turned, and saw that the guy's wife had passed out and fallen face first on the floor. She'd heard me tell him about the asbestos-containing duct tape and, like a ninny, had held her breath until she passed out.

There is a town north of here in my own state where the ground is rife with asbestos because it's exposed on the surface in fields. If it were the bogeyman everybody thinks it is, the hospitals here would be full of people that got sick after driving up and down that interstate every day.

The EPA and lawyers who're making a fortune by suing companies due to clients who've contracted mesothelioma or asbestosis, are blowing this asbestos thing out of proportion when the truth is there is no way on earth to completely eliminate one's exposure short of the silly space suit description I used above. You have a far higher likelihood of dying from a car accident or falling down the stairs than you do getting sick from minimal asbestos exposure. Stop dwelling on it and live your life worry-free.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

 

 

[merle]

Hi Mike, I was worried because my husband sawed out all the siding on back of the house for a sun room addition, and there was alot of dust, we were exsposed too, and later I read and article on line that a siding company was saying in and advertising ad that it contains asbestos,it scared me. Kind regards Merle

.

[Les]

Thanks Mike.  Guess I should have capitalized my answers. 

Merle - my apology.  I'm in this business for over fifty years and sometimes I forget everyone does not have the same access to my "memory" knowledge or skill set.  Asbestos is not a joke but it is manageable if understood and removed from emotion. 

[merle]

4 hours ago, Les said:

Thanks Mike.  Guess I should have capitalized my answers. 

Merle - my apology.  I'm in this business for over fifty years and sometimes I forget everyone does not have the same access to my "memory" knowledge or skill set.  Asbestos is not a joke but it is manageable if understood and removed from emotion. 

 

[merle]

12 hours ago, merle said:

Hi Mike, I was worried because my husband sawed out all the siding on back of the house for a sun room addition, and there was alot of dust, we were exsposed too, and later I read and article on line that a siding company was saying in and advertising ad that it contains asbestos,it scared me. Kind regards Merle

.

Hi Mike! I forgot to add to the above message,do you still think we are safe since he sawed the walls down and created all that dust? Kind Regards merle 

[merle]

1 hour ago, merle said:

These are pics from the internet that looks like our siding,but the inside of our siding was different it look like wafer instead of the wood chips on this photo,but the back side look like this photo.thanks!

 

Edited August 8 by merle

[hausdok]

I spent a whole lot of time answering you twice. If you read what I wrote, you'll see that millions of people with casual exposure to asbestos live long and fruitful lives....and some don't. You'll also see that EVERYONE who is alive, babies as well as adults, has already been exposed to the stuff, so, it's always possible that you or your husband could get sick from asbestos, but I doubt you've been exposed because he was cutting on a 1990 house. I can't guarantee that neither of you will ever get sick though because you'd both had been exposed long before he ever cut into your house. We all have been.

Understand that it is alleged by the medical people that it takes about 20 to 25 years for asbestos exposure to metastasize in humans. So, even if something in your house contained asbestos and you or your husband were exposed to it, there is no way that anyone a quarter of a century from now will be able to discern whether the asbestos either of you were exposed to came from the same source, came from driving down the highway, came from your home or a former home, or anyplace in particular because of the passage of time. All they would be able to do is make a diagnosis of asbestos exposure.

So, fretting about this now is pointless and frankly, kind of foolish since it is after-the-fact and even if he, or you, have breathed it in there is no way to get it out of your lungs. It would be there to stay, period. Worrying about whether you'll ever get sick and die from asbestos exposure is kind of like worrying whether you'll ever be struck and killed by lightning or stomped on and killed by a hippopotamus. 

Any of us will be happy to answer any other questions about a home that we can, but re. this asbestos thing, I'm done. If none of us has managed to quell your fears, I'm sorry, but please stop beating this dead horse.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Les]

Merle, your photos do not make sense and regardless they can't be uploaded.  Please re-consider reading this entire thread for you own peace of mind.  Regards.

 

[hausdok]

She doesn't seem to be reading what we say, so I'm going to lock this thread.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike