Asbestos Cement Siding History

The epa officially banned the use of asbestos in new building materials in 1989 but decades of use means it is still in millions of homes.

Asbestos cement siding history.

Asbestos cement was first developed in 1905 by the johns manville company who became one of the premier manufacturers of cement asbestos materials. Asbestos cement faced competition with the aluminum alloy available in large quantities after wwii and the reemergence of wood clapboard and vinyl siding in the mid to late twentieth century. Asbestos cement siding was a commonly used building material in the us and canada from the early to mid late 20th century roughly from the 1920s to the 1980s. Asbestos cement is usually formed into flat or corrugated sheets or piping but can be molded into any shape wet cement can fit.

Siding material and other products using asbestos reinforced concrete continued to be sold and installed well into the early 1970s since it was believed that the process of making asbestos cement somehow neutralized the asbestos fibers. Cementious siding and roofing such as fiber cement siding lap siding and fiber cement roof shingles containing asbestos may then have appeared on homes constructed between 1906 and 1980 in north america and continuing later in some other countries. Asbestos shingle history begins with inventor and entrepreneur ludwig hatschek who was born in the czech republic on october 9 1856. Asbestos cement first came into use as an exterior cladding after 1907 when austrian engineer ludwid hatschek came up with a way to shape the material into sheets allowing it to be manufactured as siding and shingles.