Asbestos worries

[HouseAdvice1]

We're having our kitchen redone. DH is currently removing the old tiles and discovered they were stuck onto the previous tiles so he just removed the whole lot.

I'm now paranoid in case the old tiles/grout contained asbestos, is this sort of thing possible?

I have OCD and this has massively triggered me. We have small DC in the house and I'm now really worried imagining asbestos fibers everywhere that will damage their health.

The house was built in the 60s if that makes a difference. The survey when we bought is came back as likely positive for Asbestos in some old floor tiles in a cupboard and Artex ceilings.

Gosh I'm so worried.

You can send a small sample off for testing to companies on online for about £20

There are three kinds of asbestos white, blue and brown. The test will tell you which one is in the tiles. I can't remember which way round it is but the one in tiles and tile adhesive is normally the least dangerous.

Also is order for it to cause problems it needs to be small enough to get into your lungs. So unless there was lots of smashing stuff up when the tiles were removed, the asbestos will have stayed in the tiles and cement and not got into the air.

Basically. If it is asbestos there is a small risk that your husband could develop asbestosis in several decades time but there is nothing either of you can do about it now and also it is pretty unlikely.

The best thing you can do to make sure there is no risk to you any more is the give the house a good hoover and dust and make sure you bin all the dust without breathing it in. I.e. bag it up out in the garden just in case for the next week or so.

I could have written this post. Get it tested and if there are traces, have it removed asap.

Thank you we're trying to see if someone could come to test tomorrow, if not I will get an online kit. It's slightly reassuring that all the kits I have seen list possible places for asbestos and none of them mention wall tiles/grout but still.

The problem is DH also had a go at it with all internal doors open and all our stuff still out in the kitchen, crockery on the draining board, fruit bowl, clothes hanging on the airer. I went a little bit mad as who does that! Even without asbestos, building dust isn't the best for the kids to breathe in, not to mention the amount of bloody cleaning I'll have to do on top of the usual.

I've just come home from taking the kids out, DH is doing more DIY somewhere else, again with all the doors including the kids bedroom doors wide open. I want to cry 😢

@user1494050295 , sorry you're going through the same thing. Have you had yours tested?

We did and it came back positive for asbestos but not the powdery type. It was in the ceiling so we covered it in a gigantic plastic sheet and had it professionally removed. Once that was done we had someone come in a fix the ceiling. Good luck

I don’t think it was ever used in wall tiles, they’re usually ceramic, and I’ve definitely never heard of it in grout.

it was in sheets, insulation, artex, floor tiles, that sort of thing.

I’ve been ripping houses apart for 35 years and I’m still alive.

also, if it was the dangerous type and you’ve inhaled it it’s too late.

one way or another is calm down about it. It’s probably nothing.

Sorry to hear @user1494050295 but glad it's all sorted and you can put it out of your mind now.

@Palmasailor thank you that's reassuring. We did ask the kitchen company as originally they were going to send someone to do that job and they said it literally never comes up and they've been doing kitchens for 30 years. We still have a lot more to do and it needs to be done by Friday so I really hope we can get a result in time.

But it sounds like we'd be pretty unlucky for it to be in the tiles and grout. What about insulation? Is that insulation on the walls? Worried it could be on the kitchen walls now 🙉

it won’t be on the kitchen walls.

go get a bottle of wine and stop this…

honestly it’s nothing.

That's what they look like.

I'm obsessing, I definitely need to get that bottle of wine!

They look very much like they are white ceramic tiles and tile adhesive from around the 1980s. With an awful lot of dusty cobwebs on them.
Asbestos tiles look very different, more like vinyl or on occasion like very compressed sawdust/ cardboard.

if in doubt, a test kit of the internet is cheap and easy.

The most dangerous thing about that wall is that you’re worrying about it so much that you don’t look where you’re going and end up crossing the road without looking and get run over by a bus.

When i left school at 16 i got job at a local building firm ( labouring, dogsbody) they did NCB maintenance work . I lost count of the number of times we ripped down ceilings covered in artex, i must have breathed in tonnes of the stuff and used to go home blacker than a chimney sweep. Im in my fifties now with no ill effects.

I’ve knowingly taken up old asbestos floor tiles, broken up abestos garages. Just stick a decent mask on and dont worry to much. 🙂

This did make me laugh.

My worry has gone up a level as DH removed a unit to find some old, partly broken floor tiles underneath. It's pretty guaranteed those floor tiles have asbestos as some are visible in a kitchen cupboard and were identified as asbestos when we moved in. They are the same size and pattern.

I wouldn't have minded if they were intact but there were plenty of loose and chipped parts as well as a whole lot of dust.

Why they installed units on top of broken tiles I have no idea! But I am even more worried now as these are most likely asbestos. We put a board over them to cover them when we noticed but the DCs have been in the room.

How dangerous would this have been? I wish we'd never started this bloody project 😥

I work as an asbestos analyst/ surveyor, and I’ve never personally seen it in ceramic tiles or wall grout. Vinyl/ plastic type tiles and bitumen adhesive found on the floor are the ones you want to worry about.

Floor tiles and bitumen are also very low risk. It is perfectly legal to remove them yourself and the chances of widespread contamination is unbelievably low.

Thank you @SquashPenguin that's reassuring.

I have done way too much googling and found ONE site mentioning that almost all tile adhesive before the 1980s will have contained asbestos including for wall tiles so I'm now so worried about the large section that DH removed willy nilly. He then walked all over the house in the same clothes.

Do you think the couple of broken tiles we found under the units will have exposed us also? They would have been broken a long time ago so hopefully any fibers would have been long released and we didnt touch them, but I am wondering if anything would have been spread through the drafty house.

I dont think I'll be able to sleep until we've had everything tested and a plan in place. The not knowing is killing me.

@HouseAdvice1 floor tiles have something in the region of <1% asbestos. It is very low. They don’t spontaneously release fibres. We never recommend anyone searching asbestos on Google, you will only find the things you don’t want to read- not the relevant information or practical advice. Floor tile removal is done by using a breaker to get them off the floor. I have run hundreds of air tests after floor tile removal in areas much bigger than an house and never had one fail. A couple of broken tiles in your house will do nothing!

Stop googling, get them tested. Any reputable UKAS accredited laboratory can point you in the direction of UKATA Cat B removal company if they are positive and you don’t want to remove them yourselves.

@SquashPenguin thank you, they're coming to test tomorrow but then we'll probably face another 2 days before results.

Thank you, I'm really reassured about the floor tiles. I'm more worried about the wall tiles, mostly because of the amount of dust DH had managed to create that and how it went all over everything. If it did have asbestos the whole house is contaminated and so the DC too :(

Think you should have bought a new build.😐

I've recently spent literally months, reading literally 100s, of proper, professional, asbestos surveys. Many to demolition standard.

Not a single one, in all that time, has mentioned ceramic wall tile adhesive as having the potential to contain asbestos. Not one. These are surveys where things like window glass putty and the insulation inside a defunct Aga (which had to be smashed to access the insulation!) have been sampled. I would have no worry at all about it. Honestly.

@SquashPenguin ,if you don't mind, and if OP doesn't mind, how would you go about removing artex ceilings? Definitely asbestos, chrysotile, would you take down the ceilings completely or are the chemical removers that make it wet again worth using?

@HouseAdvice1 I would honestly eat my hat if those ceramic tiles had asbestos. I’ve never seen it and I’ve analysed thousands of tiles in the lab.

@GrannyAchingsShepherdsHut If you want it removed, it’s probably easier to pull the whole ceiling down. Your council should have advice on disposal as it varies council to council. A professional removal company taking the plasterboard as well would literally sheets all the surfaces and pull it down with a crowbar. There’s a substance called Ex Tex which you paint onto artex and scrape 24hrs later, but it’s VERY messy and stinks. It’s more suited to concrete surfaces. Many people overboard artex or have it skimmed. As long you wear a FFP3 mask it’s safe to do yourself if you wish. If I had artex to remove in my house I’d probably do it myself and save a small fortune. The risk is very low.

Was the dust because he ground the tiles up, OP?
What made the dust, angle-grinding into brick walls, maybe?

@lljkk I think mainly bits of plaster coming off the wall with the tiles. And probably also from the ceramic wall tiles themselves.

Saying that according to DH there was barely any dust so I may be exaggerating.

I can have quite bad anxiety (as you can see) and my mind will focus on things and blow them out of proportion.

Most of my anxieties are around contamination, and my house is usually my safe haven, the only place I feel safe and relaxed and happy.

So this scenario has played to my idea of hell, I'm so unsettled.

He didn't use any power tools or grind anything, just used like a chisel thing to snap the tiles off the wall.

Yeah it doesn't sound dusty at all, tbh. At least not for us that have lived with brick dust getting everywhere.

-says she who needs to clean the bathroom because that place is a dust magnet

OP, I honestly think the chances of there being asbestos there is slim to none. As I said I've never, ever, seen a report where asbestos was noted as being potentially in wall tiles or adhesive. The black bitumin adhesive that vinyl type floor tiles are stuck down with, absolutely, but not ceramic tiles and adhesive/grout. I really don't think it's a thing.

Thanks @SquashPenguin we definitely have the skills to take down ceilings ourselves. Just worried about doing an effective clean up afterwards I suppose.