Asbestos in Commercial Buildings Built Before 1990: What Owners Need to Know
If your commercial building in Toronto or the GTA went up before 1990, the working assumption should be that it contains asbestos somewhere. Not a certainty — but the burden of proof runs the other way. You don't get to assume it's clean. You have to demonstrate it.
Canada didn't fully ban asbestos until December 30, 2018, under the federal Prohibition of Asbestos and Products Containing Asbestos Regulations. But the material had already been phased out of most construction products through the late 1980s and into the 1990s. That leaves a wide band of GTA commercial stock — offices, plazas, warehouses, restaurants, medical suites — built or last renovated while asbestos was still standard.
Where it actually shows up
Owners tend to picture pipe lagging in a boiler room. That's one place. In practice, asbestos in commercial buildings turns up in:
- Sprayed fireproofing on structural steel and deck
- Pipe, boiler and duct insulation
- Vinyl floor tile and the black mastic underneath it
- Drywall joint compound and taping mud
- Acoustic ceiling tile and textured ceiling coatings
- Cement board and transite panels
- Built-up roofing and flashing
- Electrical panel backing boards
The joint compound one catches people. A wall built in 1984 can look completely ordinary and still be an asbestos-containing material once someone puts a saw through it.
What Ontario law puts on the owner
Two obligations matter, and both sit with the building owner — not the contractor.
The designated substances report. Under Section 30 of Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act, before you contract construction, renovation or demolition work, you must have a report identifying designated substances present at the project — asbestos, lead, silica, mercury and the rest. You must give that report to every contractor bidding the job, before they sign. No report means bids are guesses, and guesses on asbestos are expensive for everyone.
The asbestos management program. Section 8 of Ontario Regulation 278/05 requires owners of buildings containing asbestos to maintain an asbestos management program and a written record of the material — where it is, what condition it's in. That record has to be updated at least once every 12 months, and whenever the owner learns something new. If you own a pre-1990 building and have never heard of this record, that's the gap to close first.
Type 1, Type 2, Type 3
O. Reg. 278/05 classifies asbestos work by the exposure risk it creates. Type 1 is low-risk — removing a few ceiling tiles, for example. Type 2 covers most enclosed removals. Type 3 is the highest-risk category, and it carries the heaviest procedural requirements: full enclosure, negative air, decontamination facilities, air monitoring and clearance.
Type 3 work also requires advance written and oral notification to an inspector at the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development office nearest the workplace before the operation starts.
None of this is negotiable, and none of it can be compressed to hit a schedule. A stop-work order costs more than doing the procedure properly the first time — in money, and in the weeks it takes to restart a shut-down site.
What this means for your next project
The sequence matters more than most owners realize:
- Survey first. Before tendering, not after.
- Define the abatement scope from the survey results.
- Tender the work with the report in every bidder's hands.
- Notify MLITSD where the classification requires it.
- Abate, monitor, clear.
- Then demolition or renovation proceeds.
Run it out of order — tender the reno, discover asbestos in week two — and you're stopping the job, re-pricing the scope and re-scheduling trades. That's the single most common way a straightforward GTA fit-out turns into a three-month problem.
Finding it isn't a disaster. Finding it late is.
Asbestos in a pre-1990 building is normal. It's managed every day across the GTA under established procedures. What creates real cost is discovering it after crews are mobilized, contracts are signed and a tenant is waiting on a rent-commencement date.
Sofisa Group handles asbestos and mould abatement to O. Reg. 278/05 alongside demolition and interior commercial renovation across Toronto and the GTA — so the survey findings, the abatement and the work that follows sit with one accountable contractor instead of three.
If you own or manage a pre-1990 commercial building and you're planning work on it, talk to us before you tender. Call (647) 963-4310 or email info@sofisa.ca.
Planning a commercial project in the GTA?
Sofisa delivers demolition, abatement, fit-outs and renovations under one contract with senior site supervision. We'll walk the site and come back with a hard number within one business day.