Anyone know about asbestos reports?

[Olive20100]

Hi all,

Anyone know much about asbestos reports, please?
We are in the process of buying a home and got the paper work sent over. These are old militarily houses that were lightly refurbished.
In the information pack there is an asbestos report that says the following:

Asbestos as indicated was detected in the properties listed below:-
 All units – Floor tiles and bitumen to Hall, Lounge & Dining Rooms, now encapsulated under new floor finishes – Low risk to health**
 All units – Textured ceilings to both ground and first floor - Low risk to health**
 All units – Gasket on airing cupboard tank* - Low risk to health*
 All units – Bitumen wrap on incoming electric mains supply – Low risk to health*

Surveyors have determined that the materials physically identified represent a negligible health risk due to their bonded nature, have determined that the materials physically identified represent a negligible health risk due to their encapsulated nature.
*Presumed asbestos. Very low risk item
Should maintenance or other works be undertaken in any of these properties by future owners/occupiers then again specialists should be consulted prior to commencing work.

I really don’t know much about asbestos and if this should be something to be concerned about? A lot do the houses have already been sold so I’m assuming people don’t mind?

and yes we can get our own survey but this is already a survey carried out to say it’s there.

Let me know your thoughts please and thank you.

We had to get an asbestos report when selling a commercial property, they took away samples for analysis. It read similarly to yours, the surveyor basically said that there wouldn’t be an issue unless someone disturbed the area so fine to paint over the walls but more of an issue to scrape the Artex ceilings. I think there’s quite a lot of older properties which this may affect. Sorry I can’t help more than that.

We have that type flooring in the property covered with flooring. I think it would of cost a couple of thousand to take them so just decided to cover them up instead. The advice from everyone we spoke to was to cover them up and forget about them.

It’s not a risk unless it’s disturbed as others have said. The asbestos found in bitumen and sorted is usually crysotile, or white asbestos, and would need to be removed by a licensed removal company should you ever wish to take the artex down or remove the floor tiles and then an air clearance test will be carried out by them after removal.

If you don’t plan on removing either it won’t be a problem, and you can cover the floor tiles with something else without disturbing it if you wish.

Artex, not sorted!

Thank you! Yes it does say ‘Floor tiles and bitumen to Hall, Lounge & Dining Rooms, now encapsulated under new floor finishes’ and then there is new carpet and vinyl, so I’m assuming that’s all ok. I think in future for the ceilings we would plaster them if that’s ok and safe.

Plastering them is fine but you'd still have issues if you needed to drill or cut into them for any reason such as new lighting fittings, you can't do that.

The rule with asbestos is to not disturb it…

We had artex ceilings which came back as asbestos.. talked to seller and got 5k from asking price . Had them all removed and replaced. Not an easy job!

Old Victorian property.
Probably cost more now this was 10 yrs ago .

So plastering them is disturbing it?

No, plastering over it is fine.

Drilling through it to fit light fittings etc would be disturbing it.

DS just took a lot of asbestos out because it completely interfered with his rennovtn plans. What OP is describing I imagine I wouldn't worry about, unless you plan to remove walls or ceilings or put in underfloor heating.

Thanks for the info!
Not sure how to feel about the purchase now in terms of if need any work done in future etc and any possibility of disturbing it. Probably over thinking it as partner keeps saying, but hard not to.

You may just need a professional to deal with it thats all.