Asbestos Scare/Demo Day — The Trailer Travels

After purchasing our vintage trailer, we couldn’t wait to start the renovation process. When showing the trailer off to Jimmy’s dad, telling him our plans and visions for it, he said, “Well, do you know if it has asbestos?” My heart sank. As much as I wanted to wish I was never warned about the possibility of our trailer containing asbestos and potentially killing us slowly (I know, dramatic, but true), I knew it would be the right thing to do to wait it out, get it tested, and then begin the demo process. We tried to search online if our 1957 Terry contained asbestos but we couldn’t find anything on it. Asbestos can be in places like vinyl flooring, adhesives, roofing, insulation, and more. We did learn that asbestos is okay if undisturbed, but we were going to be tearing the floors and wall paneling out so we knew we must get it tested. We also learned that the main uses of asbestos were banned in 1977, so we suggest anyone planing on renovating a trailer built in the 1980’s and earlier should get it tested as well.

We searched online what companies do asbestos testing in Los Angeles and we decided to go with the company called VM3 Environmental. They do asbestos testing all over Southern California and they were extremely helpful, especially because Jimmy and I didn’t have a clue about the asbestos testing process. When our official asbestos tester Ramon arrived, he was very helpful and gave his expert opinion on what areas we should test. We were concerned about the vinyl flooring, the insulation, and the old heater that our trailer came with. There was no sign of suspicious insulation in the heater and the insulation beneath the wall paneling was just fiberglass (we expected that, but better safe than sorry). Ramon said the vinyl flooring was suspicious as well as the insulation around the electrical wiring, and he took three samples each. I believe it was around $365 for the first three samples and $115 for every additional 3 samples (they have to get three of each area in order to say it is asbestos free) for a total of $480. Yes, this may seem a little pricey, but I’m pretty sure you would agree that our health is worth any amount of money!!

Fortunately, Ramon told us that our lab results would arrive either the next day (Friday) or the latest on Monday. We were super lucky and got our results on Friday. When I finally opened the email, I saw the results AND IT WAS NEGATIVE! Thank the lord we did not have asbestos because that means that we can continue our journey without any worries.

Proudly holding a power drill in one hand and an iPhone flashlight in the other, we FINALLY began to tear our beloved trailer apart. Demo day is one of the most fun, stress relieving parts of our journey thus far. It was also one of the most rewarding because the progress is so evident. After our asbestos test came back negative, we couldn’t wait to begin the demolition process.

We took the windows off from the outside before we started demo just so we could have some more light come in as well as air and it really made the process easier. We used power drills to help take apart the inside as much as possible wherever there were screws, a small pryer to pull out any wooden pieces such as cabinets that were held in by nails, and a larger pryer to finish the job. Before you begin your own demo process, make sure to also grab some respirators as well as safety glasses from a hardware store (we got ours from Home Depot). Since Jimmy and I are both very athletic, we really wanted to keep our lungs safe. And as for the safety glasses, Jimmy would have 100% gotten a splinter in his eye without them. Our first day of demo we wanted to just get as much stuff out as possible. We started with the loose pieces, worked our way up to cabinets, and finally started doing the kitchen. On our first demo day, we didn’t take out the oven, sink, heater, or ice box because we didn’t have a wrench on us. Next time we will finish off that part and begin taking off the wall paneling! The demolition process is super fun but make sure to take these safety precautions. Don’t give up if it seems difficult and always keep your end visions in mind!

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