Is this possibly asbestos?

purpleparrotuk

Found out today the bt master socket is not wired in. Due to have had the phone line and sky fibre made active today. The phone point is on a wall panel that has the stopcock in an access hatch. The by cable must come from underground because there is no grey box outside. The problem is this access hatch has the bt cable embedded in what looks like expanding foam type stuff but it’s very soft a crumbly. Not sure what the phone engineer will do to connect it up since there no play in the cable. Is this white stuff possible asbestos? If you touch it with a screwdriver it feels like crushed ice or slush puppie.

Kiran

First things first, you can't identify asbestos with the naked eye so you have to get it sampled for certainty. That being said that looks very much like expanding foam, if it's soft then it probably got wet. How old is the property?

purpleparrotuk

Kiran wrote: »

First things first, you can't identify asbestos with the naked eye so you have to get it sampled for certainty. That being said that looks very much like expanding foam, if it's soft then it probably got wet. How old is the property?

Hi it’s late 60s early 70s. I only had an asbestos survey on Saturday. I wish I had known this was there then :-(

EachPenny

As Kiran says, you cannot be sure from looking at it alone (especially not just from a photo) but in this case it does look more likely to be some kind of expanding foam.

Could you post some more pictures to get a better idea of context... i.e. is it filling a deep gap, or a cavity?

PhilE

Asbestos is usually contained or covered to make it harmless. Unless a total idiot did the job of course, which happens unfortunately. Best to get it sampled to make sure.