We recently bought a house & have begun building work in it (no kitchen / bathroom and yet the costs are spiralling a bit already!) Anyway, a question I have is the following.
In the survey it was flagged up that there may be possibly some asbestos in decorative areas of ceiling. If any work will be done on ceiling, this will need to be checked either by a contractor who has license / experience in working with asbestos OR by bringing in an asbestos specialist.
I had forgotten all about this & begun the work with contractor recommended and trustworthy (only one day done so far) who however doesn't have license in working with asbestos. It hadn't occurred to me that ceilings will be involved in work. But they will, as the major thing we're doing is taking out 2 chimney breasts in ground & first floor which affects ceilings. (We are now in process of party wall agreement for that & also getting engineer in to check it's all done well). The ceilings will also need replastering / repainting.
Given that the costs as I said are already spiralling (as usually happens I suppose, although the actual building work is costed very precisely, but there's all these extras) please could you advise on the quickest & of course safest step we could take on this to make sure there's no asbestos or if there is to get rid of it before ceilings are touched? Thanks. This needs to be done fairly urgently as if chimney breasts don't come off no other work can really proceed.
Arrrgghhh the building work is stressing me already & we're only one day in 