Asbestos worry

[Sasstastic]

Merrily tidying up our garden wall, I was chiselling away the messy cement to reveal the lovely stonework. This wall is huge and hundreds of years old. The cement/ grouting was added before we moved here and we’ve been here 15 years. Some of the cement came off in clumps. A lot crumbled and revealed a lot of what appeared to be chalky powder. I was covered in dust. I was out there 3 plus hours and then it dawned on me, could there be asbestos in this? I poured some vinegar on the clumps and powder and it fizzed so I guess contains lime. Would asbestos be in this? Thank you, I’m just worried.

To my knowledge, asbestos was added to building materials due to its fire retardant properties. It's unlikely, though not impossible, that it would be used in a garden wall. The only way to find out is to send some of what you've chiselled off for testing.

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No one will be able to tell you there is asbestos without testing a sample. There are certain plastics and other products which routinely contained asbestos - some toilet cisterns and floor tiles for example - which are recognisable, but for this you need to contact a firm that does testing.

It will be lime mortar and no reason for it to contain asbestos.

Seems very unlikely. I agree with pigletjohn - lime. Wear gloves.

Thank you so much.