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To the long list of issues plaguing 24 Sussex Drive — from old windows to a prime minister who doesn’t want to come near the place — we can now add asbestos.
Asbestos is all through the plaster in the 150-year-old home’s walls and ceilings. It isn’t doing any harm for now, but it becomes a danger if someone opens up the walls.
And removing it will cost more than $900,000, according to an engineering report commissioned by the National Capital Commission.
Built in 1867, the Gothic Revival house was at first a private home, standing three stories tall on heights above the Ottawa River.
The federal government took it over as an official residence around 1950, and NCC records show that while it has seen major work at intervals, it hasn’t kept up with the times.
The mast major kitchen reno was in the 1970s. The pool came in 1975. There has been some fire protection added, some stabilization of the escarpment, and roof rehabilitation in 1999, but the place still has elderly windows and historic wiring.
And now, asbestos, according to a report released through an access-to-information request. The presence of asbestos is no surprise, but the extent of it is.
The engineering firm that did sampling, Exp, reported in 2016 that previous sampling had shown almost no asbestos in the walls and ceilings; only a single sample showed it at a very low level.
Exp found more. There are two kinds of plaster in those 1867-era walls: smooth white plaster on the surface and rougher grey plaster underneath. The surface layer is asbestos-free, but the stuff inside the wall has asbestos as an ingredient because it was once added as a binding agent.
Exp drilled four-inch-diameter holes (about 10 centimetres) to reach the insides of the walls and to pull out drill cores for lab analysis.
Asbestos is present in both exterior and interior walls. “It is our opinion that the grey coarse plaster layer from the entire building is to be considered asbestos-containing,” they wrote in their 2016 report.
It also found asbestos in higher concentrations in places where it was already known to exist — as a wrapping material around pipes and in some floor tiles.
Its verdict is that the walls and ceilings don’t pose any immediate danger because the asbestos layer is sealed inside the wall. This means it can be “managed in place.”
But the problem is that 24 Sussex needs renovations, and that means disturbing the plaster. Exp says it would probably not be possible to remove the plaster without creating airborne dust, and asbestos becomes dangerous when people breathe it in.
This would then require more extensive steps to vacuum up and contain the dust, at a cost of $150 per square metre of wall or ceiling.
To do the job properly and remove the asbestos would require a budget of $918,600, it concludes. This includes a 15-per-cent contingency amount, and also includes more than $20,000 for removing mouldy materials from the pool building.
The most recent federal budget contained some money for repairs to NCC properties, but 24 Sussex was not one of them.
查看原文...
Asbestos is all through the plaster in the 150-year-old home’s walls and ceilings. It isn’t doing any harm for now, but it becomes a danger if someone opens up the walls.
And removing it will cost more than $900,000, according to an engineering report commissioned by the National Capital Commission.
Built in 1867, the Gothic Revival house was at first a private home, standing three stories tall on heights above the Ottawa River.
The federal government took it over as an official residence around 1950, and NCC records show that while it has seen major work at intervals, it hasn’t kept up with the times.
The mast major kitchen reno was in the 1970s. The pool came in 1975. There has been some fire protection added, some stabilization of the escarpment, and roof rehabilitation in 1999, but the place still has elderly windows and historic wiring.
And now, asbestos, according to a report released through an access-to-information request. The presence of asbestos is no surprise, but the extent of it is.
The engineering firm that did sampling, Exp, reported in 2016 that previous sampling had shown almost no asbestos in the walls and ceilings; only a single sample showed it at a very low level.
Exp found more. There are two kinds of plaster in those 1867-era walls: smooth white plaster on the surface and rougher grey plaster underneath. The surface layer is asbestos-free, but the stuff inside the wall has asbestos as an ingredient because it was once added as a binding agent.
Exp drilled four-inch-diameter holes (about 10 centimetres) to reach the insides of the walls and to pull out drill cores for lab analysis.
Asbestos is present in both exterior and interior walls. “It is our opinion that the grey coarse plaster layer from the entire building is to be considered asbestos-containing,” they wrote in their 2016 report.
It also found asbestos in higher concentrations in places where it was already known to exist — as a wrapping material around pipes and in some floor tiles.
Its verdict is that the walls and ceilings don’t pose any immediate danger because the asbestos layer is sealed inside the wall. This means it can be “managed in place.”
But the problem is that 24 Sussex needs renovations, and that means disturbing the plaster. Exp says it would probably not be possible to remove the plaster without creating airborne dust, and asbestos becomes dangerous when people breathe it in.
This would then require more extensive steps to vacuum up and contain the dust, at a cost of $150 per square metre of wall or ceiling.
To do the job properly and remove the asbestos would require a budget of $918,600, it concludes. This includes a 15-per-cent contingency amount, and also includes more than $20,000 for removing mouldy materials from the pool building.
The most recent federal budget contained some money for repairs to NCC properties, but 24 Sussex was not one of them.
查看原文...
