Author
|
Topic: Asbestos advice please
|
|
|
|
Mike Peckham
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1461
From: West Sussex, UK.
Registered: Jun 2003
|
posted July 17, 2005 01:14 PM
Mark
For the last three years I've worked for Environmental Health as a building surveyor, we are asked about asbestos at least two or three times a week by anxious home owners and the advice is always; if you don't start rubbing it, cutting it, drilling it or breaking it up you'll be fine.
Many Councils [ours included] don't offer a service for removal of asbestos but would recommend that if you are going to carry out alterations in an area where you suspect there might be asbestos then get a specialist contractor in from the yellow pages.
In truth there are very few houses in the UK built before 1980 that are truely asbestos free, at one time it was used in Artex [Yuck!], roofing and walling materials, furniture, household appliances, paint, white goods in fact you name it there was a chance that asbestos was there. Fortunately though for most householders the danger from asbestos is from exposure to the fibres which are only really present in the atmosphere when the stuff is interferred with, as your man has already said, don't worry half as much about the white stuff as you would the blue.
If it's of any further comfort, we were recently asked to survey an asbestos bungalow for a concerned tenant. To be on the safe side we solicited the services of a specialist asbestos surveyor, the result was that there was no tangible risk living in the property all the time it was in sound condition and nobody disturbed the structure. However when the property is alterred, or more likely demolished then specialist contractors would be required to carry out the works.
Don't worry about your bit of asbestos roofing Mark, provided you don't set to with the Black and Decker or start Chopping it up with an axe it won't be any risk to you or any one else.
Mike
-------------------- Auntie Em must have stopped wondering where I am by now...
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Scott G. Bruce
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 229
From: Boulder, Colorado, USA
Registered: May 2005
|
posted July 17, 2005 10:39 PM
Dear Mike (and everyone else),
My wife and I just closed on a house in Boulder, Colorado (a tiny ranch house built in 1954). It has hardwood floors throughout, except for a small carpetted bedroom with a large closet that has linoleum tile on the floor. We intend to have a new carpet put down in the room and the closet too. When a contractor came in last week, he announced that the tiles in the closet (and undoubted the original floors under the present carpet) were laid with Mastick (from what I understand, an asbestos-based glue). He told us that it would be safe to carpet over it (so long as we do not compromise its physical integrity and thereby releasing the fibres), but we were quite alarmed, especially since the inspector who went through the house didn't mention it. Can you confirm our contractor's evaluation of the situation, Mike? It would certainly put us at ease. Thanks, SGB
-------------------- "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|