For over a week I was trying like a mad man to find some mineral wool to put around my fireplace firebox before installing the insert. I could not find anything within 75 miles. I finally decided to take some from my attic. As I was scooping some of it into a bag I kept seeing little shiny mica like flakes mixed in. Something about those shiny flakes seemed odd to me since all the photos of rockwool on the internet I had seen did not have any shiny material.
I did some research online and became quite worried that my attic might be full of asbestos contaminated vermiculite mixed with the rockwool. I contacted a lab and talked with the guy that handles asbestos testing. He said in the 4 years he has been with the company he only encountered asbestos in rockwool once. He has never seen rockwool with shiny flakes like that and he said that there is a good chance it could be vermiculite.
I sent in a sample of the rockwool Friday morning and I got the results today. It has no asbestos, those shiny flakes are indeed mica. Odd thing is 10% of the sample has cellulose mixed in with it as well. Now I can sleep a lot better knowing I have not been crawling around in a attic full of asbestos tracking the dust into the house.
I did some research online and became quite worried that my attic might be full of asbestos contaminated vermiculite mixed with the rockwool. I contacted a lab and talked with the guy that handles asbestos testing. He said in the 4 years he has been with the company he only encountered asbestos in rockwool once. He has never seen rockwool with shiny flakes like that and he said that there is a good chance it could be vermiculite.
I sent in a sample of the rockwool Friday morning and I got the results today. It has no asbestos, those shiny flakes are indeed mica. Odd thing is 10% of the sample has cellulose mixed in with it as well. Now I can sleep a lot better knowing I have not been crawling around in a attic full of asbestos tracking the dust into the house.