Hi,
I've recently purchased a house believed to have been built in 1972 and I am in the process of renovating it.
The bathroom ceiling is in poor condition due to a water leak when the cold water storage tank was being removed from the loft above before we moved in. It is artexed with a bobbly finish and having heard that older artex frequently contains asbestos I decided to get a sample of it tested. The ceiling in the bathroom looked by far the oldest and in the worst condition out of all in the house. We had a builder round for another reason and he considered that the ceiling was in such poor state it would need to come down rather than be skimmed.
I got the results back today:
"Our analyst and quality manager have informed us that although for sample 2 you stated Artex, they suspect that the textured coating was probably applied directly onto Asbestos Insulating Board due to the large quantities of Amosite fibres present within the sample. We would normally expect to find only Chrysotile fibres to be present within textured coating and in small quantities. Therefore we would just like to advise you to undertake further investigation into the material to clarify if AIB was actually present behind the textured coating. AIB is a licensable material and should therefore be removed under fully controlled conditions by an approved licenced removal contractor."
This slightly freaked me out! Whilst I was expecting there may be asbestos, I was only expecting it to be white asbestos not brown and now i'm wondering if i have a much bigger problem than just some artex. I took the sample myself. All I actually included was the artex and the plaster attached to it; where it had dropped down from the water damage. Whatever material behind it was a light brown colour. I sealed the hole back up afterwards but it's not perfect.
I am wondering two things now, was the light brown material visible behind the plaster i removed really AIB containing brown asbestos and does this then mean that every ceiling in the house may have this? Or could the previous owners have fitted something like asbestos roof tiles in the bathroom that at some point have been artexed over?
I have contractors coming to put down new loft insulation in 15 days and before that I have to clear out the old insulation from the loft. If my ceilings have AIB do I infact need to reconsider doing this for the moment? And, is it likely to be safe to venture into the loft without full mask and suit etc?
Also, knowing that the ceiling in the bathroom has recently been water damaged and a section has dropped and been sloppily replaced, should I be worrying about the fact that we could be getting exposed to the fibres during daily use?
I believe that I should be looking for an asbestos surveyor to do further investigation but I don't know where to start with that, do council's Environment Health still get involved with asbestos?
Does anybody have any advice or experience with this situation, I don't know if I'm over-reacting or not?
Thanks in advance.
I've recently purchased a house believed to have been built in 1972 and I am in the process of renovating it.
The bathroom ceiling is in poor condition due to a water leak when the cold water storage tank was being removed from the loft above before we moved in. It is artexed with a bobbly finish and having heard that older artex frequently contains asbestos I decided to get a sample of it tested. The ceiling in the bathroom looked by far the oldest and in the worst condition out of all in the house. We had a builder round for another reason and he considered that the ceiling was in such poor state it would need to come down rather than be skimmed.
I got the results back today:
"Our analyst and quality manager have informed us that although for sample 2 you stated Artex, they suspect that the textured coating was probably applied directly onto Asbestos Insulating Board due to the large quantities of Amosite fibres present within the sample. We would normally expect to find only Chrysotile fibres to be present within textured coating and in small quantities. Therefore we would just like to advise you to undertake further investigation into the material to clarify if AIB was actually present behind the textured coating. AIB is a licensable material and should therefore be removed under fully controlled conditions by an approved licenced removal contractor."
This slightly freaked me out! Whilst I was expecting there may be asbestos, I was only expecting it to be white asbestos not brown and now i'm wondering if i have a much bigger problem than just some artex. I took the sample myself. All I actually included was the artex and the plaster attached to it; where it had dropped down from the water damage. Whatever material behind it was a light brown colour. I sealed the hole back up afterwards but it's not perfect.
I am wondering two things now, was the light brown material visible behind the plaster i removed really AIB containing brown asbestos and does this then mean that every ceiling in the house may have this? Or could the previous owners have fitted something like asbestos roof tiles in the bathroom that at some point have been artexed over?
I have contractors coming to put down new loft insulation in 15 days and before that I have to clear out the old insulation from the loft. If my ceilings have AIB do I infact need to reconsider doing this for the moment? And, is it likely to be safe to venture into the loft without full mask and suit etc?
Also, knowing that the ceiling in the bathroom has recently been water damaged and a section has dropped and been sloppily replaced, should I be worrying about the fact that we could be getting exposed to the fibres during daily use?
I believe that I should be looking for an asbestos surveyor to do further investigation but I don't know where to start with that, do council's Environment Health still get involved with asbestos?
Does anybody have any advice or experience with this situation, I don't know if I'm over-reacting or not?
Thanks in advance.