OMG I did not know this!!!! Did you?

[Treegle]

I've just discovered that it's possible for artex to contain asbestos!! I never knew this! And my dad worked as a painter and decorator for many years!! Is this common knowledge?!!!

I’m not sure why anyone would go to the trouble of scraping it off when it’s easier and safer to cover cover it with new plaster.

The existing plasterboard can’t always take the weight of another layer of plaster.

Yes I did know this.

But I only found it out 2 years ago.

Awful really.

Artex is vile IMO. Never liked it. Awful, nasty stuff. Houses look dreadful with it in IMO. So tacky and dated and grim.

I found out when reading about asbestos when we were buying/renovating our house about 15 years ago. We had a Victorian terrace and there was asbestos in the attic probably as a firewall. We we’re told it was ok as long as not disturbed. I did start looking at my parents dappled ceilings like 😱😱😱 though.

My dad has life limiting lung disease and has been asked if he’d ever come across asbestos. He said it was at work (MOD), in car brakes (he replaced his own), artex, corrugated roofs that he clambered across as a child..could have come across it anywhere! Coincidentally my parents were avid users of Johnson baby powder too.

@greathat I mentioned that we had super safe removal of kitchen ceiling and the rewirers wouldn't go through the ceilings? Well it reminded me that they knocked our separate bathroom and toilet into one (same company), they took out the ceiling without any protection - and that was asbestos too! (Something else for me to worry about tonight).

Practically everything contained asbestos until the eighties, they were mad for it.

Prior to getting married in 1983 we had bought a house with a large lounge that had an artex ceiling. We couldn't afford to get someone in to plaster it, so stripped it using wallpaper scrapers then someone wallpapered it for us. I can't even remember wearing a mask.

Should it be mentioned in the survey when you buy a house? I couldn’t find any mention when I looked at it after I discovered this. You’d think they’d make people aware of the possibility and the dangers when they buy a house.

@duplocupcake apparently they stopped it in after in 1984 and as your house was 1987 then it wouldn't have had it in - I'd imagine the surveyor would have know this

That should say stopped in in artex in 1984

apparently they stopped it in after in 1984 and as your house was 1987 then it wouldn't have had it in

I’m afraid you can’t rely on this. It wasn’t fully banned until 1999 and although production with asbestos ended in the mid-80s stocks will have been used up over subsequent years.

It said it innour survey. House is from 1982. We’ve had most of ours plastered over.

This feels like something I knew twenty years ago and then forgot.

Is it safe to get it just skimmed? Or does this mean it has to be removed professionally?

We moved into a new build which had it in 1998. I have no idea if ours had asbestos in it but I hope not because I used to sit on my high sleeper and break off all the spikes :o It did just seem like plaster though.

@BertieBotts I never realised you were so youthful!

Yes, but I'm an architect and did a CPD on spotting possible asbestos on site - there is more asbestos out there than most people are aware and there are different types some of which is more of a problem than others.
The HSE website provides really good easy to use guidance for contractors, householders, well anybody who might come in contact with it or suspect it's around and what to do.
You can in certain limited circumstances work around it without getting specialists into remove it.

Apparently woodchip wallpaper can contain it as well.

Asbestos tends to be in old storage heaters too if anyone still has them. We do but they are so expensive to run we just have plug in radiators in a couple of rooms and use blankets everywhere else. They cost a bomb to remove because of the asbestos. Someone I know told me she just ripped hers out

Ooh Cole nobody has said that about me on here for years :o

Heh. I'm slow in the uptake like that

Thanks Treegle. What I’ve read is mixed, saying that builders might have continued to use old stock for a few years afterwards, as Pockets has said. I’d like to believe that though!

Oh FFS we've literally just pulled down half a kitchen ceiling which is old artexed.

How the hell do we safely do the rest of it??

Nah I just used to be one of the "babies" of MN, I was only 20 when I started posting here. Ten years ago

Yes I knew, I'm a structural engineer and we have to do mandatory asbestos awareness annually. It is everwhere. Artex, woodchip wallpaper, old toilet cisterns and seats (the old black kind you get in schools, in and around boilers, behind andin storage heaters, ceiling tiles, floor tiles, roofs, soil pipes, insulation...

Just this Sunday just gone i buried a load of asbestos drain pipes in a very deep hole out front (with hired digger). Didn't know about bloody artex!!

Yes I knew this. Can’t remember how though!