Asbestos exposure should I be worried ?

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Hi,


Having renovation done and when builders cut through plastic soft fit yesterday in two places for block work to go up on second storey with jig saw turns out there was a thin cement board on the underside, I was in garden watching as discussing project with builder, the builder then dropped the soft fit into the dumper about a couple of metres away from me and load of dust came up - mainly from dust/debris that was already in dumper. It was only afterwards main builder looked at soft fit in dumper and said mmm that could be an asbestos cement board that the soft fit was siliconed to. Is about 7mm thick and 50cm across.


No one was masked at that point as was not expected. Took a double bagged sample of the board to local testing place and came back as Chrysotile asbestos, now really worried about possible exposure not when soft fit was cut as well away (would worry for the carpenter) but when was dropped down into dumper as may have broken some more at that point.


Am I worrying about nothing given the brief potential exposure at that distance and outside, I am guessing lots of people mistakenly do stuff every now and then or should I be concerned ? The rest will be dealt with properly, double bagged and taken away.

Any thoughts greatly appreciated,


Lawrence
 
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Whilst I think this is one of the most dangerous forms of asbestos, and it is extremely hazardous, you need to think about the risk.

Risk is the hazard combined with the likelihood of harm. Whilst the hazard is high, outside exposure from one single occurance, when the dust/debris was only partially asbestos means likelihood is pretty low.

I wouldn't worry too much, just make sure your builders follow the proper procedures from now on, or get a specialist firm in
 
Many thanks for quick reply, guess hard to quantify how much of a risk it was, wish I had changed clothes before kids bedtime, kicking myself on that, but guess not much I can do about it now and the worrying is not healthy, guess many people have short exposures and if everyone was made ill by it then would be loads of people affected,

Many thanks,

Lawrence
 
The risk from asbestos cement board is vanishingly small - if any at all. There's probably more of the stuff floating around in the background air currents than you've been exposed to. When I was a kid, a block of flats near us was being partially demolished. There was a big fire going on site - always was in those days. We discovered that if you throw a piece of AC board on the fire it explodes. We broke dozens and dozens of sheets of the stuff into smallish pieces throwing them on the fire. All good fun.
 
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The risk from asbestos cement board is vanishingly small - if any at all. There's probably more of the stuff floating around in the background air currents than you've been exposed to. When I was a kid, a block of flats near us was being partially demolished. There was a big fire going on site - always was in those days. We discovered that if you throw a piece of AC board on the fire it explodes. We broke dozens and dozens of sheets of the stuff into smallish pieces throwing them on the fire. All good fun.
ACM board lined tenant's store rooms at the bottom at flats and maisonettes near us, and we found it made excellent 'chalk'. I don't know if it was cement sheet or AIB. :confused::eek:
 
Whilst I think this is one of the most dangerous forms of asbestos, and it is extremely hazardous, you need to think about the risk.

Risk is the hazard combined with the likelihood of harm. Whilst the hazard is high, outside exposure from one single occurance, when the dust/debris was only partially asbestos means likelihood is pretty low.

I wouldn't worry too much, just make sure your builders follow the proper procedures from now on, or get a specialist firm in
Chrysotile is the least dangerous type of asbestos, and even less dangerous when it’s in asbestos cement.

even if you have been exposed, a single exposure is unlikely to do you any harm, and even if it does, it won’t affect you for another 30ish years.
 
Many thanks for all the replies, pretty happy now wouldn’t have breathed much/any in, more worried now that would have got some on clothes which stupidly didn’t change and then put both kids to bed, wish I could wind the clock back and stop them cutting it, so annoyed and worried and avoidable,

Lawrence
 

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