Asbestos Abatement in Ottawa — Type 1, 2 & 3

Section 12 of O. Reg. 278/05 sets the classification. Type 1 covers the lowest-disturbance work: installing or removing asbestos ceiling tiles covering less than 7.5 square metres without breaking them, removing non-friable material intact, working non-friable material wet with non-powered hand tools, or removing less than one square metre of drywall with asbestos joint compound. Type 2 covers glove-bag pipe insulation removal, enclosing friable material, removing one square metre or less of friable material, dry work on non-friable material with hand tools, power tools attached to HEPA dust collection, and a catch-all for anything that may expose a worker and is not Type 1 or Type 3. Type 3 covers removal or disturbance of more than one square metre of friable material, spray-applied sealant on friable material, cleaning or removing air handling equipment in a building with sprayed asbestos fireproofing, and power tool work on non-friable material without HEPA collection.

Section 10 of O. Reg. 278/05 requires an owner to have an examination carried out and a report prepared before requesting tenders for demolition, alteration, or repair — or before contracting for that work if no tenders are requested. The examination is not required if the owner already knows the material is not asbestos-containing, or already knows that it is and, for sprayed-on friable material, knows the asbestos type. In practice, on a pre-1990 Ottawa building, the survey is what a constructor will ask for before pricing the job.

It depends on the classification and the square metreage, not on the building. A Type 1 tile removal can be a single visit. A Type 3 enclosure has setup, removal, clearance sampling, laboratory turnaround on the samples, and teardown — each a distinct stage with its own duration. HMRS gives you a stage-by-stage schedule at scoping rather than a single number, because the clearance result is the gate and it is not one you can compress.

Rarely. Most occupied-building work is done by isolating the work area rather than vacating the building: enclosure, negative air, and shutdown of the air handling that serves the space. What has to be decided up front is the path in and out for workers and waste, and whether any shared mechanical system connects the work area to occupied space.

For a Type 3 operation, the constructor on a project — or the employer otherwise — must notify a Ministry of Labour inspector at the office nearest the workplace, orally and in writing, before commencing. The written notice names the person giving notice, the owner, the address, the work, the start date and expected duration, and the supervisor in charge. The same notice is required for glove-bag removal of one square metre or more of pipe insulation.

That air inside the enclosure was sampled after removal, with forced air keeping fibres airborne, and that every sample came in at or below 0.01 fibres per cubic centimetre. It is the evidence that the enclosure can come down and the space can go back into use. Without it, a Type 3 area is not cleared, whatever the visual inspection shows.

No. Asbestos-containing material that is intact, undisturbed, and in good condition is generally managed in place rather than removed. It becomes a problem when it is damaged, when it is friable, or when work is scheduled that will disturb it. That is why the survey comes before the renovation rather than after someone opens a wall.

Yes. Reconstruction after remediation is a distinct scope from general contracting, and running it on the same file avoids the handoff gap between the abatement contractor leaving and a rebuild trade arriving with no record of what was behind the wall.