Contractors, business owners and landlords must identify and properly abate asbestos-containing materials before renovation or demolition of any building.
Licensing and certification for asbestos abatement requires training, documentation of previous asbestos abatement experience, and registration with the Construction Contractors Board and the Oregon Business Registry.
In fall 2018, Oregon adopted additional requirements for handling asbestos-containing material. Read about some of the changes on Oregon’s updated asbestos rules here. You can also review Chapter 340 Division 248 “Asbestos Requirements” for a complete review of the requirements.
All commercial buildings regardless of construction date and residential buildings constructed before 2004 must have an asbestos survey conducted by an accredited inspector prior to any demolition or renovation activities, with one main exception. Owner-occupants of a single family home doing their own home renovation work are exempt from this rule. A copy of the asbestos survey report must be on-site during all renovation or demolition activities, and must be provided to DEQ upon request. Read more about asbestos survey requirements.
Required notifications include:
- ASN-1 Friable Project Notification
- ASN-6 Nonfriable Asbestos Removal Notification
- ASN-4 Asbestos Waste Shipment Report
- All notification forms
Asbestos is commonly found in walls, ceilings, floors, roofs, siding, HVAC systems, insulation, pipes and more.
As of November 2018, distinct layers cannot be composited for analysis. When a sample consists of two or more distinct layers or materials, each layer must be treated separately and the results must be reported by individual layer.
Plaster and stucco: If plaster and stucco wall or ceiling systems are layered, and the layers can be distinguished, then the layers must be analyzed separately. Where a plaster or stucco wall system is constructed in layers, and the asbestos-containing layer becomes a distinguishable but “non-separable” component of the wall system, the results of the analysis of the individual layer(s) may include a small amount of the other layers when analyzed (for example: a skim or brown coat layer may contain a small amount of the base coat layer in the analysis of the skim coat layer).
Add-on materials (surfacing): All materials “added” to wallboard or other base materials (such as sprayed-on materials, paint, ceiling or wall texture) must be analyzed separately, if possible. The results of the analysis of those individual layers of “add-on” material cannot be averaged with the result of the analysis of wallboard for a composite result, but must be analyzed and reported separately. Where a thin coating of one material is applied over another material and the materials cannot be separated without compromising the layers, the analysis may include a small amount of the base layer. If for example, a paint layer containing asbestos is spread over a wallboard layer, and the paint layer cannot be separated from the wallboard, then a small amount of the wallboard layer may be included in the sample of the paint.
Joint compound and wallboard: When joint compound and/or tape is applied to wallboard it becomes an integral part of the wallboard and in effect becomes one material forming a wall or ceiling system. Therefore, a bulk sample of the system that contains the joint compound, tape, and wallboard may be analyzed to identify the asbestos percentage of the system. Surfacing materials or other layers that can be separated must not be included in the analysis.