For about 4 months I was working clearing and cleaning out an old tile shop. The first about month and a half were fine. I was getting paid by what I got done, finishing 1 thing in about a week, and I was making $400-$500 per job, sometimes more. I worked my ass off there, completely clearing and cleaning 4 rooms, between 900 and 1300 square feet each, in a month and a half. Doesn't sound too bad, right? Well, I had to wear a full face respirator every day for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, because of silica dust. It wasn't too bad wearing it in the cold, but once it started getting hot, that thing was hell to breathe through. I also had to pull all of the old wires out of the attic, and by the time I knew about that, I was no longer getting paid by the job. I was making $400 a week, spending a minimum of $200 on gas each week, and roughly $100 on food and drinks just while i was at work. That's also when it started getting hot, and I was the only one at the old tile shop most days. I got there at 7:45 every morning, and the earliest I ever left was 5:00 in the evening. I also didn't get a real lunch break. I had to go pick up food, come back to the shop that still has silica dust all in it, and eat there. Before I finally decided to say “fuck it,” I was working 10 hours every day, outside every day, and didn't have access to the one room that had an air conditioner in it. On the pad in front of the shop, on the day I quit, it was 119°F according to the truck that was parked IN THE SHADE. I'm the one who got that piece of shit back into (almost) working condition, and what did I get for all of the work I did? A constant sinis infection, silica dust in my lungs, and at most $100 a week to spend on food at home and trying to fix my truck, which still doesn't have a working A/C.
Just FYI, respirators still let roughly 3-4% of silica dust through, and there's not supposed to be more that 50 micrograms of silica dust per cubic meter of air. If you can see it, it's too much, and it will most likely kill you within 10 years without ppe. With a respirator, in conditions like what I was working in, where the dust is so thick that it forms a very noticeable coating on your clothes and boots, it'll still most likely take 5-10 years off of your life.