Asbestos Suspended Ceiling Tiles

Asbestos in ceiling tiles.

Asbestos suspended ceiling tiles.

Sometimes asbestos ceiling tiles are hidden from plain view above a suspended ceiling. These cases should be investigated with extreme caution as the area above some suspended ceilings is used for ventilation and could possibly be blowing the asbestos. These sound dampening tiles typically use asbestos with amphibole fibres occurring as columnar crystals which includes crocodilite and amosite. Our page top photo shows an old acoustic ceiling tile that tests showed did not contain asbestos.

Asbestos was also a common ingredient in some mastic adhesives used for glue up application of ceiling tiles. Asbestos was a great building material and used in all kinds of products before we knew of its hazards. Asbestos may have been used in the ceiling tile tiles and in lay in ceiling tiles in suspended ceilings in the tile body or in paper facing or backing on the ceiling tiles. Of the two.

These types of ceilings are also referred to as dropped ceilings or acoustic ceilings they are created by suspending a framework from the roof or upper floor and inserting ceiling tiles into the open spaces thereby creating a space between the ceiling and upper floor or roof. For this reason it was used literally in everything. Acoustic ceiling tiles with asbestos. How to recognize ceiling tiles by visual inspection to note clear evidence of non asbestos materials such as fiberglass and how to confirm that othe ceiling tiles or suspended ceiling panels are asbestos free by a simple lab test.

Some clues to if your ceiling tiles contain asbestos is the age of the tiles. In ceiling tiles asbestos is most commonly used for reducing the amount of noise that spreads from one room to another.