The fundamental idea on containment is simple: keep one or more contaminants in or out of an area. Quite literally, a containment is an isolation system. Containment is designed to stop, slow, or control the exchange of one or more contaminants from one spatial environment to another. In the restoration world, we think of it as “specialized.” The truth is, it is so common, we use it, live in it, and work in it every day, no matter what you do for a living. Containment truly permits life on Earth; without containment, Earth would be a dead planet.

So, what is a contaminant? And what are the contaminant(s) that the containment is to control and to what level? Ask a contractor about containment and many think: OSHA = Engineering Control