asbestos - cost of removing?

ben500

robwend wrote:

and having the firm round means it wont be airborne? sorry but i dont agree, ive seen them do it, a mask hun is all they use,

If they are a licenced firm they will turn up with far more equipment than a facemask, your front garden will look like a scene from quatermass with all the gear they use to remove it professionally.

I'm sure if you phone the local cowboy he'll turn up with half a woodbine hanging out his mouth and come out with something like "Nah you don't want to listen to all that nonsence missus that's all them pc folk spouting nicey nicey again, worst you'll ave is a bit of coff luv don't you worry I'll skip the lot of it for ya for £200"

robwend

ben500 wrote:

If they are a licenced firm they will turn up with far more equipment than a facemask, your front garden will look like a scene from quatermass with all the gear they use to remove it professionally.

I'm sure if you phone the local cowboy he'll turn up with half a woodbine hanging out his mouth and come out with something like "Nah you don't want to listen to all that nonsence missus that's all them pc folk spouting nicey nicey again, worst you'll ave is a bit of coff luv don't you worry I'll skip the lot of it for ya for £200"

great!! when can you come

welnik

I'm wondering whether I may have asbestos in my 1950's house. The other day, my mother had a quote for guttering etc and was advised that it looked like her guttering was asbestos. I am about to demolish an old coal house and the guttering is painted black but underneath its white. How do you tell?

It makes a mockery of things really as back then, all those workmen that put the stuff up in the first place, are they no longer with us due to asbestos?

kit

My uncle had asbestosis.... he died.
However, not everyone gets it.

My brother and I grew up around asbestos. we used to have play fights with the dust (it was our 'job' to sweep it up after the sheets had been cut). We were always covered in it!

So far no signs of illness.... nor has anyone else that worked with us.

It effects some and not others. It is random who it effects. If you are worried, dont touch it - get someone else to.

OddjobKIA

free4440273 wrote:

i do indeed want a ball-park figure, so i can use this as a negotiating tool with the purchaser. i am not looking to blame posters here for their personal projected figures, i actually appreciate their advice, so if somebody wishes to put a ball bark figure on it then please, i would be most grateful.

I am sorry to say that a ball park figure is between £500-£500,000

Asbestos is leathal, As others have mentioned a sealed area is needed and a vacum must be set up to ensure that no particals can escape into the atmosphere. Asbestos i belive should come up in the survey and the price should reflect this ( I may be wrong here)

If you get a quote from 4-5 companies and 3 of them are lets say £3000 and the other two are £200 we don't need to ask why.

Just a quick note:

Bangor university found 8m2 of asbestos in their theatre celing It took 8 weeks, and £15,000 to get it removed. Admitidly there where complications in the fact that students where to-ing and fro-ing and they had to ensure that no particals got out. that sort of bumped up the cost.

Simply put asbetos kills, more than smoking, more than coal dust, more than cancer. If it was in my house and peole quoted me £50,000 an hour to remove it i would give them£60,000 to make sure they did it right,

You are legally allowed toremove it your self but you must declare it when you dump it. Also i agree with others DO NOT DO THIS YOURSELF

mrs_baggins

asbestos is only a risk if the fibres are realeased into the air which are then breathed in. once inhaled it could take from 15 to 60 years to the onset of disease so its not a case of I did it last week so I must be ok. as other posters have said if the asbestos is intact there is no problem but if its disturbed or damaged it can become a danger. asbestos used to be used an awful lot in houses until the 60's i think. it was used sprayed as fire breaks and protection, as boards for insulation, partitioning, as lagging, as ceiling tiles and as sheets for roofing. it was also used in the manufactoring of vinyl tiles as well. distinguishing asbestos is also difficuly. some things can look like it but are not and other things dont look like it but are. If in doubt get someone out to check and dont just break a bit off to send off to someone!

ben500

kit wrote:

My survey said the house i was buying has asbestos - couldnt use it to lower the price tho - its standard that the houses on this estate has asbestos so no bartering power in it.

We have left most of it in situ - doesnt cause any problems being there. we have removed the stuff round the boiler as we took the boiler out. We just put it in a bag and took it to the tip - they have a special place to put it.

Personally I would have had them remove it prior to exchange of contracts or bought another house.

robwend

god you bunch of girls flap about anything dont you:D

Softstuff

robwend wrote:

god you bunch of girls flap about anything dont you:D

not just anything.
My dad was diagnosed with asbestosis last month.... and he last worked anywhere near it nearly 35 years ago. Currently when he should be heading towards a pleasant retirement, he's heading towards spending the rest of his life next to an oxygen tank. That's if the lung cancer associated with asbestosis doesn't get him first.

There are dangerous types of asbestos, and there are those types which are not so dangerous, I wouldn't be about to guess whether I knew the difference for sure. Though I wouldn't shirk DIYing anything else, this is one job I wouldn't touch with a bargepole.

Get the professionals in, pay them what they want, and then be grateful you didn't risk your life for a pittance.

grumpytoo

Re asbestosis, allegedly if (A) one is genetically disposed to it, (B) smokes heavily and (C) works with asbestos for a long time then one is almost guaranteed to get it. The most dangerous types of asbestos are the blue and the brown forms woven into blankets for lagging steam boilers and steam pipes. Needless to say the mills where the material was woven were high risk areas. Nevertheless I have been told about mills where the workers resembled snowmen but still didn't get asbestosis.

As to "cement fibre reinforced sheet" the asbestos is embedded in cement, furthermore it is WHITE asbestos, the least dangerous kind. Please also be aware that asbestos removal companies will hype-up the risks in order to make money, in fact it is alleged that numerous councils have been "taken to the cleaners" in this very way. All one has to do is turn up in NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) suits and make a big show of what is being done, its money forold rope. There are a great many products containing asbestos, old ironing boards and old night storage heaters, cylinder head gaskets, brake shoes and clutch linings but one doesn't see people dropping dead all over the place. One case that I heard about involved a man who worked in a dockyard during WW2. Allegedly he worked with asbestos. Now in his eighties he "has asbestosis" and he has been paid many thousands of pounds. Personally I think this is disgraceful because the man has smoked at least twenty cigarettes per day for over sixty years, about half a million cigarettes.

Use your loaf.