Asbestos worries - 60s/70s house - any advice?

[PracticingPerson]

Hi, we are looking at a house in our preferred area. The one downside is the whole area is late 60s/early 70s housing - and I am not keen on the thought of asbestos. Having lived in modern houses for a long time I haven't had to deal with this.

Would this put you off a house? How much asbestos will there be? The house itself is in decent condition, I can't see any textured ceilings (they appear to be papered).

No it wouldn't put me off - there are millions of houses like this and they are all fine :)

This is what I keep trying to tell myself but I can't get my head round it, I have never had to think about drilling into a wall or anything in my houses for many years, the thought of having to be careful is really putting me off.

Honestly it wouldn’t put me off at all. It usually takes a lot of repeated exposure for asbestos related conditions to develop, so most commonly through exposure at work.
Familiarise yourself with potential asbestos sources in a 1960s/70s home and just make sure you employ a professional if you want to disturb those areas.

Asbestos is likely to be present in any house more than about 20 years old. Asbestos in and of itself isn’t really an issue, it’s only a problem if you want to get work done that involves disturbing it. If you’re especially worried or have specific plans then it could be worth getting an asbestos survey done before you buy, ours was about £120, £80 for the first sample, £10 a sample thereafter.

Any house pre 1990 could have asbestos. As a householder the main risk is that it'll have a potential cost if you want to do any work!

We're mid extension with a 1960s house- we had asbestos soffits that had to come off, so we had the asbestos ceilings in the utility room and boiler cupboard removed at the same time (not affected by the works but builder said it wouldn't cost much more and would save another visit in future.

In our last house the company that replaced our bathroom had no problems grinding the peaks off the artex ceiling to re-skim.

Get an asbestos survey.

Its one of those things that unless you have a house built aftet the 90s, your house probably has some asbestos somewhere.