Hugh Phillips
5/5
When I discovered asbestos containing floor tile in my home I contacted several firms that advertised asbestos remediation as a service in the Tucson area. One no longer did asbestos remediation, one did not return my call for several weeks, but the third, HC Environmental was able to come out to look at the job and make an estimate in a day or so. HC Environmental is the husband/wife team of Harold and Cindy Worthman.
My initial call to HC Environmental was for a bathroom with sheet linoleum containing asbestos glued down with asbestos containing mastic. Harold quickly put together an estimate to clean the floor down to the cement, using appropriate sealing and ventilation for asbestos and was able to start the job almost immediately. I was surprised at what seemed like a very modest cost for the dangerous and difficult work - I had tried to remove some of the tile and mastic myself with some very sharp scrapers and only managed to remove a few square inches. Harold seemed confident and only asked 50% down to begin the work but I was prepared to be disappointed. I didn’t actually see the processes Harold used for his work; he had installed an ‘airlock’ on the bathroom door and a outward blowing fan on the bathroom widow. In two days, the job was finished, all the exposed surfaces wiped down and an air quality test performed that revealed no airborne asbestos in the bathroom air. I was amazed at how clean the floor was after Harold and Cindy’s work - it was right down to the bare cement, so really, an excellent job that exceeded my expectations.
When I decided to replace floor coverings (rugs and linoleum) in a few other rooms I was prepared that more asbestos containing materials would be found in sheet linoleum in another bathroom, a kitchen and in the severely cracked 8x8 vinyl tiles under the rug in a large family room. I took samples and sent them to a commercial mail-in lab then called HC Environmental to look over the probable job. Harold offered to take samples for asbestos testing; he uses a lab that provides results in a day or so, and hence much faster than the mail-in lab I used so I had him go ahead. His test result indicated asbestos in the sheet linoleum and the underlying mastic and in the 8x8 vinyl tiles but not their underlying mastic. The mail-in lab test results I got later confirmed the ones obtained by Harold. Again I got a very reasonable seeming cost estimate from Harold with an almost immediate start date. The previous process repeated: an airlock entrance to the treatment area and outward blowing fans. For this job Harold used a natural oil-based solvent to remove the mastic and although he indicated the smell would dissipate in a few days, there was a lingering odor for several weeks. Again, the job performed by Harold and Cindy to clean all floors right down to the cement, removing virtually all traces of asbestos containing materials was incredibly thorough and complete. I had no reservations to follow up with installation of porcelain tile and rug on the cleaned areas.
Based on my two experiences with HC Environmental I wholeheartedly recommend them for asbestos remediation work. They can get to work quickly, provide asbestos testing, show up when they say they will, do excellent work, work safely and are very cost-effective.
