Asbestos in Heat Exchanger Result

Indeed. The comparison is interesting as Nearly two hundred thousand people were involved in road accidents. You only survive asbestosis if something else kills you first. 100% death rate, rta - 1% death rate.

 

There still is ...up are way in the peak district as well as all other farm buildings else ware ....there are thousands of roofs with corrugated asbestos roofs .
I once had the job of planting a mixed tree variety plantation only to find it was impossible to plant the trees in certain areas as the ground had been piled full of asbestos sheeting after about 10 inches of soil which had been dumped clearly to save one excrement load of money .

 

It's almost like an up to date version of the unforeseen circumstances that the romans encountered not knowing the dangers of lead poisoning.

 

And to think I was only worrying about carbon monoxide poisoning!

Great job on this and thamks for letting us all know.

 

I wonder if restorers are aware of this. Presumably the risks increase if you are working on fixing/restoring original bits all the time that contain asbestos.

 

As I often say my father died of mesothelioma 20 years ago next week, would be interested in the trends, ages and industries they had worked in, I suspect heavy industry like shipbuilding where it was regularly used in large quantities are most likely, or other plant where pipes were lagged, and removed from time to time, but that is only a guess. Given that our knowledge of the dangers over the past 35 to 40 years has improved and precautions taken I would hope over time the trend will be downwards. When I discussed it after my dad was diagnosed it was put to me that it was down to the amount and regularity of exposure, even down to whether you had a large amount of nasal hair etc.

As Dicky says there are risks. I suspect though that other health issues will overtake this as a cause of death in the not too distant future i.e. obesity.

 

It used to be in cigarette filters .... I refurbed my HX like many others and put the stuff back in ....can you put a copy of the report up ?

 

wasn't it in vehicle brake pads too?

 

Most probably not ...to be fair to VW the original ones were probably fine ...it's 40 and more years on they didn't expect them to be still running ,and they start to deteriorate that's the issue now .

 

Yep all the old decent brake pads were ...google 'what contains asbestos ' the stuffs everywhere

 

Oh I don't think vw can be blamed for not knowing about it - I don't think anyone has been prosecuted for using asbestos in various applications at a time when there was general ignorance about the effects of it, it'd be pretty odd if they had been.

But presumably the restorers have a duty of care to their staff if there is a chance that they'll be asked to handle asbestos, even given what others have said above about it being the less-damaging kind. I'd have thought this would be something to cover prominently in one of the vw glossy mags.

 

I know of one vw bus restoring company that had no idea the old HE had asbo in them . I think i could safely say that most have got the repro's by now . Could be wrong , but i think not many would bother stripping them down with all the faff and possible cost of doing it .
Don't think you would get garages wanting to do it any way , most likely just sling and change .

 

This is probably the only time I will be thankful to rust for rotting part of my heating system away. It hasn't been connected at all for at least 10 years...

 

They may indeed, but if they're ignorant they may still be breaking the law if they're not disposing of it properly.

Again, probably not the most important or biggest threat to health in a garage or workshop. But there are hefty fines for not properly disposing of hazardous waste.

 

Worrying thing if they get scrapped ...the dismantler's will deffo separate the alloy from the iron so will end up ripping it all up .

 

When I was an apprentice in 1985 one of my jobs was putting asbestos warning stickers on brake pad and clutch packaging in the parts department. My bus has the original VW heat exchangers on and they are in perfect order . It's a 2.0 litres US import. I'm tempted to not use the heaters now.

 

.....if they had a hole in the big toe. :surprise:

 

Thanks for the heads up On this. Very interesting. I think as my HE are in such good nick I'll just disconnect the heater tubes at the rear.

 

You can do what Dicky did and undo the crimping that surrounds the H/E and strip out all the gubbins running water and all that whilst you do it , dry it out , and re crimp it up .
Temted to do this myself as you will still get more heat than the repros and of coarse save money .
Dicky has put on a thread as to how he did it I think Quite a bit ago mind .