asbestos covered cable removal from conduit

[fortypaul]

Hi, I went to a commercial site recently to reconnect a motorised valve after replacement. There is something odd going on electrically as the black is live and red neutral but that's another issue. Connected to the terminals in the fused spur that feeds the actuator are 2 white cables covered in a material that I have had it tested and is white asbestos. It looks like the fibreglass covered high temperature cable.
Has anyone come across this and was it removed?
I have done the course that covers for small asbestos unlicenced work but I feel this is a bit beyond my competency. I don't think there is a lot in the building so is limited to the heating controls.
Any help appreciated.

 

[Leyland30]

Can you replace the cable without disturbing the asbestos cables I.e disconnect asbestos cabling and run suitable alternative from source to load / actuator? Just leave asbestos cable in situ, seal off associated containment And abandon. Informative labelling / signage might be sensible.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Depending on the size of run and accessibility, you might be able to seal the cable with a few coats of flexible lacquer prior to disturbing it. Loose fibres would then be contained for long enough to get it from its current position into a suitable bag. In fact it has been found that many types of asbestos cable are less prone to shedding fibres than might be expected, e.g. by comparison to rope gaskets, because they were factory-impregnated with a lacquer to improve moisture resistance and hence insulation.

If this is Rockbestos or similar, although perhaps uncommon in your field of work, it was everywhere in mine. Every theatre and stage was festooned with it until a few decades ago; in its heyday great big snakes and multicores of it were rolled up and unrolled across the stage, slung off fly gantries etc. I am not inferring that it is not hazardous, merely that it was originally intended to withstand some handling and unless yours has become especially frail, may not be quite as troublesome as expected.

E2A I realise now this might be a fixed rigid conduit, I had visualised a Greenfield or similar flexible from an FCU to the valve. If the conduit isn't coming down, then obviously filling it with lacquer isn't going to help much! In that case perhaps the actual problem is not so much the removal of the cable but being able to declare the inside of the conduit 'clean' afterwards.

 

[fortypaul]

Depending on the size of run and accessibility, you might be able to seal the cable with a few coats of flexible lacquer prior to disturbing it. Loose fibres would then be contained for long enough to get it from its current position into a suitable bag. In fact it has been found that many types of asbestos cable are less prone to shedding fibres than might be expected, e.g. by comparison to rope gaskets, because they were factory-impregnated with a lacquer to improve moisture resistance and hence insulation.

If this is Rockbestos or similar, although perhaps uncommon in your field of work, it was everywhere in mine. Every theatre and stage was festooned with it until a few decades ago; in its heyday great big snakes and multicores of it were rolled up and unrolled across the stage, slung off fly gantries etc. I am not inferring that it is not hazardous, merely that it was originally intended to withstand some handling and unless yours has become especially frail, may not be quite as troublesome as expected.

E2A I realise now this might be a fixed rigid conduit, I had visualised a Greenfield or similar flexible from an FCU to the valve. If the conduit isn't coming down, then obviously filling it with lacquer isn't going to help much! In that case perhaps the actual problem is not so much the removal of the cable but being able to declare the inside of the conduit 'clean' afterwards.

Hi thanks, I will go back and look a bit better into the situation. It is in steel trunking and then steel conduit with pvc 7/0.29 cables. I will look at replacing conduit and check it doesn't serve anything else. I am a bit happier after Julien's comments about the lacquer.

 

[Deleted member 72666]

Who's Julien?

 

[Dan]

Who's Julien?

Lucian, it's probably the phone auto corrected it

 

[fortypaul]

Sorry Lucien, it wasn't a phone auto correction, it was me making a mistake.