Worry after asbestos tile removal

[hello19]

Hi, reassurance needed so please be kind!

I'm 37 weeks pregnant and we have just bought a property and moved in a few weeks ago. There is asbestos tiles running on the ground floor however it is contained in the hallway with engineered flooring.

The tiles in cupboards were exposed and some were crumbling. We made the decision to have them removed professionally rather than cover them.

Yesterday the job was done however the wet removal method was not done and he chiseled them away dry and lots of them cracked. He removed the waste and vacuumed after however since there was no wiping or water sprayed I'm extremely concerned about airborne risk.

They say that the risk is negligible with these type of tiles however I just can't see anything online that supports this as the tiles were broken therefore friable.

If anyone has experienced this please give me reassurance that it'll be fine/ there isn't much concerning dust. My husband has wet the area and wiped down this morning but I'm just so worried about if/where particles have ended up. With the baby due imminently this stress is definitely making it a lot worse.

Any limited brief exposure to asbestos is unlikely to have any health impact. Everyone is exposed to a certain amount of asbestos during their lifetime.

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Also most of the dust is likely to be from the adhesive rather than the tiles themselves.

Thank you, your reply is much appreciated

They should have done it to HSE guidance A23, which does state the wet method should be followed. What sort of 'professional' did you use?

See https://www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/essentials/

Surprisingly one with 300+ really good reviews on check a trade. We did our due diligence, it was the same company who did the survey. I can only assume they sent a less careful worker who didn't follow safety protocol as they came hours later and started at 5pm so maybe a rushed job.

It's very scary for us because we have no way of knowing the levels of particles flying around. I know with tiles can be minimal, but there definitely was breakage. But like you have highlighted, the wet method should have been employed to minimise this risk so we're now left in the dark about our risk level in our own home. The man said initially wait 40 mins till entering the space and then just said it's fine to straight away.

In fact he called us in to show us where he'd accidentally flipped some of our engineered flooring to get rid of a tile which we've had to glue back down with a broken tile underneath.

I wouldn't be paying them until I'd had the manager round to see and hear what was done by the person that did the work.

And I'd also ignore the replies by the other PP as they don't know what they're talking about. Neither of their replies are either accurate or useful.

We rang the manager after who reassured us he's been sent pictures and that his worker properly cleaned up and it looked neat. The thing is my husband has just informed me it was just a Henry hoover he had used to vacuum! Which also is not safe. Do we have legal ground here with a job like this done so unsafely? Is it illegal for them to have not followed the protocol?

He was only wearing a dust mask pretty much because he was convinced it's so low risk, but the thing is he might think that but we did not consent to that level of exposure.

I would ring your local authority environmental health department first thing in the morning, and explain what has happened.

By the way, Checkatrade doesn't mean very much these days. It's riddled with fake reviews.

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated. If you know your stuff and there's any reassurance you can give about our safety that would be great.

Your husband has done the right thing by wet wiping everything down. If it was me, I'd be wearing an FP3 mask and a Tyvek suit, and wiping down every hard surface in the immediate area - including walls and ceiling. And giving it a very good hoover - with a modern hover with a HEPA filter. But I spent around 20 years dealing with industrial health and safety, and some of the sites I looked at had High Risk asbestos containing materials, and the training I had was very over-the-top for domestic floor tiles.

The risk from asbestos floor tiles is minimal, the risk from asbestos containing mastic used to stick them down is minimal. But all of that minimal risk is entirely dependent upon them not being disturbed. And if they are disturbed, to do so in a manner to minimise the generation of dust. The guy that did it is absolutely at a lot more risk than you.