Best alternative for sealing asbestos in artex ceiling...

Hi, I'm a total newbie to any DIY or home improvements at all, but have just become the owner of my little dream home which is in need of some updates.

There's just one dark cloud on the sky: Asbestos in the ceilings and floor tiles. I knew this when purchasing the place though, and despite winding myself up at times by Googling scary articles, I'm mostly comfortable with it, having done both a management survey and a satisfactory air test telling me the risk is low.

But for that extra peace of mind, I would like to have some extra layer put onto those scary popcorn ceilings, and was wondering if anyone here could give some advice or thoughts on what the best/safest solution?

My two alternatives now seem to be:

1) Use this "et150" paint that is supposed to give a rubber-like coating ET150 . I have actually gotten some quotes from asbestos removal companies for doing this work. They're all around £1000 which seems a bit high to me for basically just painting the ceilings of a 60m^2 property, assuming of course there isn't much benefit to having a licensed asbestos contractor do it rather than just an experienced painter... or even myself trying to get some experience in painting

2) Get the thing plastered over first, then paint the nicer-looking flat ceiling. Any downsides to this, anyone could think of? (except for the obvious one that you'll need to be really careful not to accidentally scrape the original coating when applying the plaster.

Or perhaps a combination of both? As in skim *and* use the encapsulant rather than regular paint. Even though that might be a bit overkill...

Any helpful advice much appreciated!

Best thing to do with asbestos is get rid. Second-best is leave it alone. One risk with skimming over it- if it is losing its key on the ceiling then the weight of the skim may cause lumps to detach themselves. No idea what your rubber-based paint does or what it looks like when it is applied.

If you had the headroom to spare, I'd suggest sealing the stuff with PVA and putting a false ceiling below it (NOT fixed to the original ceiling obviously).

I've kind of already decided on not getting it removed and seal, partially due to cost but mostly due to the extra hassle of doing a big renovation of a place that is in a pretty fair state to be honest. Even the HSE's guide in the UK are advocating a remove-only-if-necessary policy. So trying to not get into it-has-to-go mentality again, but do want some sort of extra layer on it.

There's no extra headroom as it's a very low ceiling, so a layer of say half a centimeter would be the maximum I'd think. Thanks for pointing out that the weight of the skim could take it down. Looks like the et150 stuff might be the preferable option then...

Absolutely no need to coat it in anything - standard emulsion paints will be fine.

The small amounts of asbestos (sometimes) present in textured coatings are bound in a matrix and are only likely to be released if you took a power sander to it. Even if parts of the ceiling were pulled down by hand then the released fibres are likely to undetectable. If it was over-skimmed and any plaster did detach then the same scenario applies - the fibres are bound with the coating/skim and will not be released.