Remove Nails Broken Asbestos Siding

This article describes why owners decided to remove fiber cement siding from their home and to replace it with james hardie s hardieplank fiber cement product.

Remove nails broken asbestos siding.

When you remove those shingles they will either come off when you pull out the nails require you to snap them off or require you to cut them. Step 4 pry off the siding. Removing shingles can be safe. Do not throw or drop removed asbestos siding.

Use vise grips or end cutting pliers illustrated in our faqs below or a pair of horse shoe nail clips or similar tool to carefully pull out the nails from the intact un damaged cement asbestos shingles above and around the damaged shingles. You can t drive screws and nails through them without pre drilling. If you need to reuse existing asbestos shingles put new nails through the existing nail holes. Asbestos shingles are relatively strong but brittle.

Throughout the process you should strive to always keep the siding wet. Work from the top down removing the snails to keep from breaking the asbestos siding. Wrap asbestos siding in 6 mil thick plastic sheeting and secure the plastic with duct tape or place the debris in heavy duty plastic bags. If necessary carefully lift siding pieces with pry tool to expose nail heads.

Covering old asbestos shingles with new siding may seem like an option too but it s not easy to do safely. Breakage releases asbestos fibers. If siding should begin to crack or crumble immediately wet the cracked or broken areas with the pint size spray bottle or garden pump sprayer. Remove pieces of siding by pulling nails or cutting nail heads so as to minimize breakage.

Use the hammer to remove any nails that are holding the siding in place. Keep the nails 1 inch 2 5 cm below the top of the shingles and space them around 12 inches 0 30 m apart from one another. Don t nail through existing asbestos shingles since this could cause harmful dust to get airborne. This would trigger dust and asbestos dust is a problem as i ve mentioned.

The article details just how the old fiber cement siding was removed with minimum damage. Saturating the area helps to keep the asbestos fibers from getting into the air.