House buying..and asbestos !!

sam1970

We are halfway through a house buying process. The house was built in 1920s and needs complete refurbishment which I am happy to do. Today I received the full building survey report I commissioned and noted that there is suspicion of presence of asbestos within the artex covering some ceilings and walls. Now I appreciate that house of this age may contain asbestos but should I pay for asbestos survey? How much,roughly, the cost of removing the asbestos? I know I could put plaster boards over it if it is intact but will not be disturbed if we drill through those boards to run electric cables..etc?

The house is lovely and we really want it...BUT..will you walk away from it because of this issue?

MFWannabe

When we bought our house the survey stated the possibility of asbestos in the artex on the ceilings and that it would be okay as long as it wasn't disturbed by sanding or drilling. It also stated the only way to know for definite would be to have tests carried out
If you have workmen in to do any work on these areas you need to advise them of this possibility
Your house is older than ours and personally I would have the asbestos tests carried out and then decide if you would want it removed or not; I would think its quite expensive to have removed ? Or if you would just have them skimmed over or you may decide not to go ahead with the purchase

Davesnave

sam1970 wrote: »

I know I could put plaster boards over it if it is intact but will not be disturbed if we drill through those boards to run electric cables..etc?

The house is lovely and we really want it...BUT..will you walk away from it because of this issue?

I wouldn't walk. The artex is younger than the house, but if you hate it as much as I do, just board it over with new plasterboard.

And if you, or anyone else need to drill through it, use a good quality vacuum cleaner as you work.

There are much greater risks in everyday living.

sam1970

I am going to arrange an asbestos survey..£300 for a 5 bed house..is that reasonable?

davidmcn

Probably a reasonable price for the survey, but I'd query whether it's worthwhile (unless you're really demanding an asbestos-free house). I'd just put it towards the additional costs of removing the artex in the future.

kirtsypoos

That's not a bad price for an asbestos survey, and gives you peace of mind (particularly if it comes back as non asbestos, that £300 spent will save you thousands in removal costs!)

Do not drill through the artex yourself, a good vacuum cleaner is not protection - every time you use that hoover again you will be releasing fibres.

Artex is not the most fibrous, however by it's very nature is non-homogeneous (ie mixed on site) so you do not know the exact amount of asbestos within, or whether it was mixed properly - for example, you could have one area with an abundance of asbestos fibres, and one area where none are detected.A decent surveying company will take a number of samples per room so they get a good representative sample.

However, you do not need to go down the route and expense of having all removed - employ a competent electrician who is happy for you to do the following: pay a day rate to a local asbestos removal company and they will scrape/drill the areas which would be disturbed. Much less cost than full removal, and much less reinstatement costs.

LisaLou1982

I also wouldnt pull out due to asbestos. We are currently purchasing a 1960s bungalow which has a very large redundant asbestos flue which needs removing plus the usual suspicions.

£300 for a survey doesnt sound bad although what are they doing? Id hope its a refurb and demo plus all samples for that price.

Management of asbestos is pretty easy - really nothing to get upset about.

dirty_magic

There's lots of artex in our house, it didn't put us off. We've had downstairs skimmed over, the plasterer didn't even mention asbestos.

There's not much asbestos in artex anyway, I think it's very unlikely you'll have any problems even if you do want to drill holes to hang mirrors and stuff.

According to the news if you have a few drinks at the weekend you might die anyway!

sam1970

thank you very much guys. The survey will include taking samples and full report. The reason I wanted to know aboout asbestos is that we are doing full refurbishment of the house (rewiring, plastering, flooring..etc) so the asbestos, if present, will be very likely disturbed

MarkBargain

sam1970 wrote: »

Today I received the full building survey report I commissioned and noted that there is suspicion of presence of asbestos within the artex covering some ceilings and walls.

Presumably they write that for any house that has artex? I believe it costs about £30 a sample to have it tested in a lab, but they would need to take samples from multiple places.

MarkBargain

dirty_magic wrote: »

There's lots of artex in our house, it didn't put us off. We've had downstairs skimmed over, the plasterer didn't even mention asbestos.

I wonder if they are aware of it. Just skimming over it should be fine so long as they didn't sand down the artex as that would release loads of fibres and a vacuum cleaner should just spread them around the house.