Hello all, I hope you don't mind me returning to the forums after many months with a question and search for advice. The title says it all. I'll try and be brief, but it's difficult.
1. There was a small chimney and "chinese hat" sticking through my roof, mortared into the old chimney stack. A survey many years earlier (when we bought the house) said that it was very likely asbestos and I should have it checked.
2. About a year or so ago I got a local roofing company to remove it and replace it with a vent tile (cold vent only). So I asked the roofing company to watch out and if they thought it was asbestos tell me what to do. This is a local company I have used many times, they are very reputable and been around for 20+ years. When I came home, they had removed it and said no problem.
3. Now we are about to put the house on the market and my wife is now having a fit about it. She got so wound up about whether it had been removed correctly or was asbestos, I got a technician round to check it out. I asked him to take a good sample size of the mortar was certain he would give it the all clear.
The lab came back with a positive result stating that "one chrysotile fibre was found, not part of mortar but suspected foreign contaminant". It was risk-ranked 4 (very low) and recommended action was "manage". I asked for more detail, and the guy said he was surprised to find a single fibre in such a large sample. He wouldn't recommend any specific action (not the job of the lab) but said it was very low risk and if it bothered me I should get a company in to check it out and clean it.
It didn't, so I didn't. But now my wife is about to have a breakdown and thinks I have poisoned the family, and will poison any potential buyer too.
Would this bother you? What would you do in my situation?
Thanks so much for any advice.
1. There was a small chimney and "chinese hat" sticking through my roof, mortared into the old chimney stack. A survey many years earlier (when we bought the house) said that it was very likely asbestos and I should have it checked.
2. About a year or so ago I got a local roofing company to remove it and replace it with a vent tile (cold vent only). So I asked the roofing company to watch out and if they thought it was asbestos tell me what to do. This is a local company I have used many times, they are very reputable and been around for 20+ years. When I came home, they had removed it and said no problem.
3. Now we are about to put the house on the market and my wife is now having a fit about it. She got so wound up about whether it had been removed correctly or was asbestos, I got a technician round to check it out. I asked him to take a good sample size of the mortar was certain he would give it the all clear.
The lab came back with a positive result stating that "one chrysotile fibre was found, not part of mortar but suspected foreign contaminant". It was risk-ranked 4 (very low) and recommended action was "manage". I asked for more detail, and the guy said he was surprised to find a single fibre in such a large sample. He wouldn't recommend any specific action (not the job of the lab) but said it was very low risk and if it bothered me I should get a company in to check it out and clean it.
It didn't, so I didn't. But now my wife is about to have a breakdown and thinks I have poisoned the family, and will poison any potential buyer too.
Would this bother you? What would you do in my situation?
Thanks so much for any advice.