Boiler Insulation

Boilers are relatively large water or liquid heating containers that virtually all homes, businesses and industrial facilities must utilize. For many industries, massive boilers are an essential component of running their facilities, though these may take massive amounts of energy to operate. Even homeowners with relatively small units can spend considerable money heating water for their personal use.  

With the amount of electricity or fuel required to operate boilers, especially large ones with commercial purposes, effective insulation is a necessity to ensure operating costs do not become unmanageable. Unfortunately, to insulate these boilers in the past, asbestos was a popular material. Due to its effective insulating properties and its inexpensiveness, asbestos found a home as a common boiler insulation material. Relatively safe intact, the asbestos fiber insulation poses a threat when the protective material surrounding the asbestos becomes torn or damaged, allowing the asbestos fibers to escape.  

Boiler Wall Coat

In addition to the insulation which wrapped around the actual boiler unit, heat loss was a risk to other parts of this heating system. This includes the boiler pipes. To prevent unnecessary energy loss, these pipes received a coating of asbestos insulation on their inner wall. Although relatively safe when contained in these pipes, during the repair or removal of these systems, the risk of asbestos exposure and resulting disease can be great. This is especially true for plumbers and other professionals who work around these systems.  

Cooling Towers

Cooling towers are industrial structures meant to allow excess heat to escape from a system into the atmosphere as easily and safely as possible. Allowing heated water to make contact with the outside air allows it be reused as a coolant more quickly. Cooling towers can be found in a number of industries, including nuclear power plants, oil refiners and chemical plants. While smaller cooling towers may sit on a facility’s roof, larger units make up their own free-standing structures.

In order to allow the waste heat to most effectively dissipate, an insulating material must line the cooling tower to ensure the heat does not escape into the tower walls itself, which wouldn’t allow the heat to escape. Before the 1980s, asbestos was one of the most common inner “fill” materials, where thin layered sheets of asbestos cement or asbestos paper provided heat and conductivity resistance. Since the 1980s, the Environmental Protection Agency has mandated older towers have these asbestos materials removed and replaced. However, its past popularity in such structures means countless employees of these industries suffered significant asbestos exposure due to the presence of this material in such systems.

Ductwork Connector

Ductwork connector seals join two ductwork components together without allowing energy loss through the leakage of cool or warm air. Because these connectors are used at the joints of these systems, they need to maintain a degree of flexibility, allowing for slight position changes. In addition, this flexibility must be present to account for outer or inner temperature changes which could alter the strain on the joints.

Before the stricter regulation of asbestos materials in the late 1970s, a large number of HVAC products were manufactured with the use of asbestos, which was cheap, effective and readily available. However, this material is now a known carcinogen and respiratory threat, as it might become brittle with age and can break down into particles which easily enter the body. Those at the highest risk of exposure to these sources of asbestos are individuals that worked installing these products in the past and those who must now remove asbestos-containing components after they have become brittle and spread their asbestos particles.

Furnace Cement Insulation

Furnace cement is another type of joint compound which was designed for use in areas surrounding both furnaces and boilers to hold firebrick in place, preventing the dangerous spread of fire. Although most furnace cement today is made with sodium silicate as the fire-resistant ingredient, for over 100 years before, asbestos was the material used for this purpose. This was due to the natural mineral’s ability to withstand high heat and fire, ease of use and inexpensiveness.

Heat Guards

These common products were used throughout boiler, furnace and piping systems that faced high temperature exposure and required protection. To protect these systems, asbestos was a natural choice due to its inexpensiveness, availability and effectiveness. The past installation of these asbestos-containing heat guards was so common that determining an exact number of businesses and homes containing them, or potential exposure victims, is impossible.

Asbestos Heating and Cooling System Product Risks

Although these products generally sit in infrequently-traveled areas of homes, the past presence of these asbestos-containing products in heating and cooling systems put countless industrial workers at risk. With the high cost to companies that did not effectively insulate their facilities, businesses learned early on that to stay competitive and keep overhead costs down, the most effective insulating materials needed to be found. Unfortunately, this emphasis on finding a cost-effective material that performed opened the door for asbestos use throughout industry.

This asbestos use posed a problem because of its friable nature, or tendency to crumble off into tiny fibers which can enter the air and cause several serious diseases. In addition to asbestosis and lung cancer, mesothelioma is one of the most devastating diseases resulting from asbestos exposure. This is largely because mesothelioma has a latency period of 20 to 50 years. That means that this disease typically only surfaces in its later stages, when limited treatment options and diminished patient health presents a poor prognosis.