Plumbers and pipefitters were exposed to asbestos because the systems they built and repaired were wrapped in it. Steam, hot water, and process piping carried asbestos insulation. Flanged joints were sealed with asbestos gaskets, and valves were packed with asbestos rope. Reaching the pipe meant getting through the asbestos first. The National Cancer Institute identifies asbestos exposure as the leading cause of mesothelioma, a disease that often appears decades after the exposure ends (NCI asbestos fact sheet).
How Pipefitters Were Exposed to Asbestos on the Job
Four tasks came up again and again over a fitter’s career, and each one created dust. The trade’s own tools made it worse, because wire brushes, scrapers, and saws turn solid material into fibers you can breathe.
- Stripping pipe insulation. Before cutting or threading an existing line, the fitter tore away the old lagging around the work area, usually by hand and often overhead.
- Scraping asbestos gaskets. Old gaskets bake onto flange faces. Removing one meant scraping and wire-brushing it off in pieces, right at face level.
- Pulling valve packing. Repacking a valve meant digging out the old asbestos rope packing with a pick.
- Cutting asbestos-cement pipe. Fitters also cut and drilled asbestos-cement pipe, common in water and drainage lines, and worked beside insulators wrapping new runs.
Any one of these jobs might last only minutes. Repeated over a long career in mechanical rooms and pipe trenches with little airflow, the exposure added up. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has documented health risks even from lower levels of asbestos exposure (ATSDR).
Pennsylvania Refineries, Mills, and Job Sites With Asbestos Pipe
The trade’s heaviest exposures in Pennsylvania came from industrial piping. The refinery complex at Marcus Hook, covered on our Marcus Hook refineries page, ran miles of insulated process pipe and employed generations of Delaware County fitters. Refinery turnarounds brought in hundreds of fitters, and insulation was removed from entire units at once. Steel mills, chemical plants, power plants, and shipyards each had their own pipe crews. On the building side, plumbers found asbestos in boiler rooms, old pipe chases, and the cement-asbestos pipe used for water and sewer lines. The full list of trades is on our occupations with asbestos exposure index. The most closely related trades are insulators, who wrap the lines that fitters installed, and HVAC technicians.
Residential Plumbers and Asbestos in Older Homes
Not every fitter worked at a refinery. House plumbers handled the same materials on a smaller scale: asbestos-insulated boilers and steam lines in basements, cement-asbestos flue pipe, and gaskets in hydronic heating fittings. A plumber who spent years in Philadelphia or Scranton rowhouse basements likely handled old pipe lagging on many heating calls, and those small, repeated jobs can add up just like the large ones.
Secondhand Asbestos Exposure for Pipefitter Families
Insulation dust and gasket scrapings ended up on coveralls, in lunchboxes, and in the family car. The National Cancer Institute notes that fibers carried home on work clothes can put family members at risk (NCI). A spouse or child of a fitter may have a claim of their own based on years of shaking out and washing those clothes. Many union families remember the routine: coveralls shaken out on the porch, then tossed in the washer with everything else.
Mesothelioma Claims for Pennsylvania Pipefitters and Their Families
Pipefitter cases tend to follow a well-established path. Union locals kept dispatch and pension records that can help show where and when someone worked. The companies that produced pipe covering, gaskets, packing, and cement pipe are often identifiable, and many of them have established asbestos bankruptcy trusts. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that these trusts held tens of billions of dollars in assets (GAO-11-819). Trust claims and a Pennsylvania lawsuit often move forward simultaneously.
Pennsylvania sets strict deadlines for filing asbestos claims, and those deadlines can depend on when the illness was diagnosed or, if a loved one has passed, the date of death. Because time limits apply, it’s wise to speak with an attorney soon after a diagnosis.
If pipe work supported your family and mesothelioma is now the diagnosis, bring whatever work history you have, even if it’s incomplete, to a free case review. We’ll help fill in the rest.