Possible asbestos in home has been disturbed, not realised

We have artex ceilings in the hallway and under stairs. Survey report on house said asbestos may be present. For some reason, we never followed it up. The ceiling under the stairs has been disturbed from accidental knocks to it and where it was partially broken already, it crumbled more because of these knocks. I remember once breaking a part of it away, and it crumbling, before thinking I should stop, as it would be a pain to re-plaster. We even drilled into the ceiling to install a smoke alarm once. 

A recent conversation made me think I should check the report on the house, which I have tonight. It's an old Victorian house, and that is when I saw again that there is a risk if asbestos in these ceilings. We will be getting an asbestos specialist in immediately to find out for sure. We have lived here for a year and a half. The ceiling was disturbed between a year and 6 months ago. 

I know all might be ok, and only the specialist will be able to tell and then the GP can provide further medical advice, but I am now quite worried and I am just looking for some reassurance. If it is asbestos and we have well and truly breathed it in on two occasions, and then lived in it for a further 6 months - year, is this length of exposure a severe risk or low risk? I have tried searching for answers on how long the exposure has to be before it is harmful, but have only got vague responses of 'many years', but maybe it's not known. If anyone does know from experience or knowledge, I'd be very grateful for your thoughts.

Thank you.

  • Hi I have added you as a friend and hoping you could message me as I am worried about exposure and would like to hear your experience 

  • Hi Gem and welcome to the community.

    I noticed you were hoping to connect with Jak99. Unfortunately they haven't been back on the forum since October 2021 so there's a chance you may not get to hear about their experience.

    I really hope that won't be the case, but if they don't get back to you, then I hope this information provided by the British Lung Foundation as well as all the experiences shared in this thread can offer you some comfort and reassurance at this worrying time.

    Kind regards,

    Steph, Cancer Chat Moderator

  • Hi 

     

    I have found this really reassuring I came home to find dinning room ceiling down and panicked cleaning up the mess and also cutting old plaster board to tidy up edge. 

    I didn't realise plasterboard was also a risk, do you have any info on the risk from plaster board?

     

    Thanks,

     

    Martin 

  • Hi Martin,

     

    This risk of asbestos within plasterboard is extremely rare. More common boards which contain asbestos would be insulating board and cement paneling. However, the only way to be sure is to get it tested and analysed.

     

    Regards,

    Chris - Asbestos Expert.

  • Hi,

    Thank you for your advice on here. We are having damp work done / tanking & have had coving taken down which was attached to an asbestos celing. I have been so anxious as the builders are still here & there is dust everywhere. We are staying in the property as the work is done.

    After reading your advice I feel more settled we have not been exposed to dangerous levels. However do you know how I should get rid of the dust? Most of the dust is from plaster board coming down but the coving would have disturbed some of the artex celing.

    I feel like the constant dust layer everywhere is asbestos but I know in reality that's not the case. 
     

    thanks fir your help 

     

  • Hi, I just wondered if anyone could help?

    There has been a lot of useful info on this thread but I've gotten myself in a complete state of panic after a lot of Google research. 

     

    We live a house that was built in 1995. About 6/7 years ago we had a flood in our loft from the boiler. One of the plumbers that came to fix it ended up putting his foot through the ceiling that is in my little ones built in wardrobe. All the ceilinging upstairs have artex on them. Therefore he had a big hole in his ceiling and a lot of the artex came down going all over his clothes and all in the wardrobe.

    We still haven't sorted this out, just put a board over it in the loft. I've only just found out that there is a possibility that the ceilings could contain asbestos. He still has the hole and the artex his hanging off. 

    We have sent off for a kit to test it but I'm beyond panicking that my child has been sleeping in a room for all of these years and also had clothing that could have had fibers on it. I can't remember if I washed them at the time. 

    I've moved him out of the room until the test is done but I'm so worried it's too little too late. 

    Does anyone know the likely hood that the artex will contain aspestos. It's a David Wilson Homes house built in 1995.

    Any help or advice with be greatly, greatly appreciated. 

    Thanks! 

  • Hi,

    Asbestos in Artex was phased out throughout the 90s and finaly completely banned in 2000, however, its impossible to tell if asbestos is present without having it analysed. But the asbestos risk in artex is very low. You'd be shocked where you find asbestos its in 1000s of products, artex ceilings is extremely low risk compared to most. But in all honesty, I'd b surprised if there was positive artex in a DW build, generally the big companies starting phasing everything out on the first ban in 1985.

    Moving forward in future renovations, I'd highly recommend that you have an asbestos survey done prior to works taking place, during a survey an expert will go through your property and inspect all areas what could be disturbed and ensure no asbestos is present. Some of the things what tradesmen have done are very shocking as they have little to no asbestos experience.

    Regards,

    Chris- Asbestos expert 

  • Hello there

    Just saw your post and wondered if you can help please.

    I am a bit worried about asbetos. Our house was build in 2004 and in 2014 we had a build extension on ground floor, just extra room. The work took around 5-6 months and we were living in the house. Potentioally breathing the dust. Now it made me worried that our house containes asbestos and we were breathing the dust for 6 months. 

    Thank you for you help

  • Hi Jk,

    Asbestos was fully banned in the UK in the year 2000, so any builds post 2000 won't contain asbestos.

    Regards, 

    Chris - Asbestos Expert

  • thank you so much for your answer.

    Just also wondering I buy lots of clothes for myself and children second hand like charity shop etc. Do you think that there is a chance these clothes could have ever some asbestos on them as I really dont know which home are they coming from. 

    Many thanks