I'm sealing up the room today with 3.5 mil plastic sheeting. What tape would form a proper seal? Painters' tape? Duct tape? I also have a few of those zippers you can tape onto plastic sheeting for easy access to the space. Now that I'm looking at them, they wouldn't seal it tightly enough (not like a ziplock seal, darn it!).
When doing abatement or remediation work we always had to use 6 mil poly, but for personal I'd think 3.5 mil is okay.
The zipper opening is also fine if you create a negative air situation in the kitchen. Using a window, you can vent with a fan (a box fan on high would work) blowing out through the open window (hopefully sitting in the window opening), tightly sealed around the edges with poly. You'll know you have decent negative air because the poly tenting will suck in toward the center of the room. So in case I've lost you, you want air to flow into the containment from the unaffected parts of the house and not the other way around.
Use
Duct Tape (the grey or black kind 1-1/2" or 2" widths) to stick the poly together and to adhere it to the surfaces you are sealing against. If you are taping to painted woodwork, drywall or wallpaper, etc., plan on it causing damage to those surfaces when you remove it. We also used stripes of cardboard placed over the edges of the poly and then we stapled through the cardboard and poly into the surface we were attaching to. Then we duct taped along those edges covering the staples and sealing to the attachment surface. If you have access to a Sam's Club or Costco, these use to be less expensive places to buy duct tape. They sold it in four packs for a very reasonable rate compared to the Home Depots and Lowes.
Also you can add a flap of plastic, termed an air lock, which is several feet wider than the opening and taped across the top above the opening outside the containment so that once negative air is on it will suck the flap down against the opening. Done properly this works well and allows relatively easy ingress and egress to the containment area.
I have not gone into any sort of finite detail on this because it would go on forever, but hopefully you get the point and I'm certain more can be learned by Google-ing "remediation containment" or "abatement containment", probably even something on YouTube.
As you have read some joint compound (drywall mud) in those days did contain asbestos, but unless you'll be ripping out the drywall or heavily sanding it (going through) the paint then this really should not be a big deal, as it's all encapsulated and not going anywhere. Heck there might even be lead paint on the walls of woodwork.
One final note of caution. You probably have seen people in movies wearing the Tyvec suits while performing these tasks. This is largely to prevent them from hosting the asbestos in their clothing as they exist the containment. Usually decontamination chamber is attached to the containment and is nothing more than a separate poly room (more zippers and flaps) where the remediators change into or out of their protective suits, goggles, respirators (
at least an N-95 filtered nose and mouth mask), etc. In your case you could just get dressed and shed those items within your containment.
Of course just know that as soon as you don all of your gear you will have to pee, so hit the bathroom first. :laughing: You will also become very hot so try and do this when it is as cool as possible and take frequent breaks and hydrate. Do not over heat :furious: and pass out, no a good way to get your rest. :no:
One last thing.
Disposal. You will need many heavy duty plastic bags to put all of that questionable waste in. Then twist the necks closed, wrap them with duct tape, fold them and wrap another time around. This seals the bags and makes them safe to carry them through any part of the house you wish to remain uncontaminated. Naturally if you have an outside door from your kitchen then this will be ideal, but even then the sealed bags will reduce both your and others exposure as the bags/wastes are handled and disposed of.
One final caution. Check into and be aware of the laws and regulations regarding handling, transport and disposal of this material where you live.
Good Luck.