York asbestos-lined duct wrap for commercial and industrial air-distribution systems

Manufacturer: York International Corporation (York, Pennsylvania) Product Category: HVAC Equipment / Air Distribution

Product Description

York International — known through most of the twentieth century as York Corporation and later York Division of Borg-Warner before returning to independent status as York International — was one of the leading American manufacturers of heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and refrigeration equipment. York’s core commercial product line included centrifugal and reciprocating chillers, packaged rooftop units, air-handling units, and the accompanying air-distribution accessories used to move conditioned air through commercial buildings, hospitals, schools, industrial plants, and Navy shore facilities.

Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that among the accessory products associated with York air-handling systems was an asbestos-lined duct wrap — a flexible, felted or paper-faced wrap allegedly bonded with chrysotile asbestos fiber and applied to the exterior of sheet-metal supply and return ducts leaving York air-handler cabinets. According to allegations in publicly filed litigation records, comparable interior duct-liner boards and blankets — used to line the inside of larger rectangular ducts for thermal and acoustic performance — were also allegedly supplied in connection with York air-distribution installations between roughly the 1930s and mid-1970s.

Documented asbestos-use period for this product line, according to publicly filed asbestos litigation records: approximately 1930s through 1975, after which fibrous-glass and mineral-wool duct wrap and liner products displaced asbestos-containing versions.

Workers Exposed

Sheet metal workers fabricating and installing rectangular and round supply ductwork downstream of York air-handling units allegedly cut, scored, and taped asbestos-lined duct wrap and interior liner boards. Publicly filed litigation records allege that hand-scoring liner boards with utility knives, trimming duct wrap to length, and stapling or pinning the wrap to the sheet-metal exterior released respirable chrysotile fibers into the immediate breathing zone of the tradesman.

Insulators were also allegedly involved in exterior duct-wrap application, particularly on larger commercial and industrial installations where thick asbestos-fiber wrap was specified for thermal control. Insulators allegedly cut wrap to fit around duct transitions, dampers, and fire-damper penetrations.

HVAC installers and start-up technicians performing final connections between York air-handler discharge plenums and building ductwork encountered asbestos wrap and liner at the flanged transitions and canvas connectors, where cutting and re-fitting were routine.

Pipefitters and steamfitters working in mechanical rooms shared with York air-handling equipment encountered airborne fiber generated by adjacent sheet-metal and insulation crews.

Demolition and renovation workers decades later allegedly disturbed aged, friable asbestos duct wrap and interior liner during building modernization, HVAC replacement, and tenant fit-out work — releasing chrysotile fiber that had bonded loosely to the wrap matrix after years of thermal cycling.