Asbestos Testing for Commercial Buildings in Toronto

Toronto has a large stock of offices, retail plazas, restaurants, clinics, schools and industrial buildings that went up before asbestos fell out of use. Ceiling tiles, drywall joint compound, vinyl floor tiles and mastic, pipe and boiler insulation and sprayed fireproofing in those buildings can all contain asbestos, and you can't tell by looking. The only way to know is to sample the material and have it analysed.

Sofisa is an Ontario commercial general contractor, WSIB-cleared and fully insured. We aren't a lab or an environmental consultant. For a Toronto testing request, we bring in qualified assessors and an accredited lab, and their report sets the scope. If the results show asbestos-containing material, Sofisa handles the abatement, the demolition and the rebuild on the same contract, so the property manager has one schedule and one point of contact.

• Before a renovation or tenant fit-out. O. Reg. 278/05 requires the owner to deal with asbestos before tenders go out or work is arranged for demolition, alteration or repair.
• Before interior or full demolition. Asbestos-containing material that may be disturbed has to be removed, as far as practicable, before demolition goes ahead.
• When suspect material turns up mid-project. If workers find material that wasn't in the report and may contain asbestos, the regulation requires notice and stops work on that material until it is tested or treated as asbestos-containing.
• For an ongoing asbestos management program. Building owners who know or suspect asbestos-containing material in their building must keep a record of it and update it at least once every 12 months.

1. Scope walk. We walk the area that will be renovated or demolished with you and note every material that is likely to be disturbed.
2. Sampling by a competent person. The regulation requires bulk samples to be collected randomly by a competent worker and to represent each area of homogeneous material, with minimum sample counts set out in its Table 1.
3. Lab analysis. Samples are analysed to the method the regulation adopts, U.S. EPA Test Method EPA/600/R-93/116. If one sample from an area reaches 0.5 per cent asbestos, the whole area of that material is treated as asbestos-containing.
4. The report. The assessor's report says whether each material is or isn't asbestos-containing, describes its condition, says whether it is friable, and shows locations on drawings.
5. Pricing from the report. We price abatement and demolition from the report, not from guesses, and we share it with every trade that needs it.

A clean report means the project can go ahead. A positive one means abatement comes first. The regulation sorts the work into Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3 operations depending on the material and how much of it is disturbed, and Type 3 work needs advance notice to a Ministry of Labour inspector. Sofisa handles the abatement, then the interior demolition in Toronto, then the rebuild through our commercial renovation in Toronto team, all on the same contract. For abatement scope and process, see asbestos abatement and removal in Toronto. For other designated substances such as lead, silica and mercury, see our hazardous building materials assessment page and the designated substances in Ontario guide.

• WSIB-cleared: ask us for our current clearance before work starts.
• $5M general liability insurance: certificate available on request.
• IICRC Certified Firm.

We don't show project photos on this page until we have real Sofisa job photos to share.

Sofisa is based in Mississauga, ON and works on commercial buildings across Toronto and the wider GTA. Nearby: asbestos testing in Mississauga, asbestos testing in Vaughan, asbestos abatement in Etobicoke, and our Toronto service area page.