Asbestos refurbishment and demolition survey?

[Caroline147]

Hi all,

We’ve just bought a new house that needs a LOT of work. It was built in the 1940s (during the war), and there are several artex ceilings. Unsurprisingly, the survey flagged up that there’s a high chance of asbestos in the ceilings.

In our last property, we had a similar scenario but didn’t get a specialist asbestos survey- as we just skimmed over the ceilings to seal it in.

However, in this case, we want to knock several walls down, extend and we need a rewire. So any asbestos is likely to be disturbed through that work.

Based on this, we’re thinking of getting a specialist asbestos survey for refurbishment and demolition survey- does anyone have any experience on this or views on whether it’s worth the money? Thanks in advance!

I’ve just had a survey done on a 3 bed 70s property that is full of artex. It’s really useful as surprisingly only two rooms contain artex. The survey tells me the condition of the artex and costs for removal. In my case the artex is in good condition so could just stay put. However, like you I’m planning on removing some walls so I’m going to get the two ceilings removed.
Survey was £275 and removal of two ceilings £1000. This is up north in the land of cheap prices but there might not be too much variation

Thanks a lot @tryingtocatchthewind- my hope is that we’ll have a similar experience and find out that not all of the artex has asbestos. We’re in London, so apparently it’ll cost us around £300 for the survey- not too bad in the scheme of a major renovation haha!

That’s not bad at all and you never know it might come back ok. I was very surprised ours was only in two rooms as there’s artex everywhere, even on the kitchen walls! It just gives you and future builders some reassurance. My survey was carried out within a week of booking it in with next day results so I can’t complain at all

£300 for an asbestos renovation survey is really good, they are very thorough, so you'll know exactly what you're dealing with.