Artex with asbestos advice

StephHarvey

We have eventually found a house we both love, which needs a lot of work. Unfortunately the house is covered in artex and was built in 1983 so more likely than not contains asbestos. By ‘covered in’ I mean every wall and every ceiling and it’s a big house! I’m getting conflicting advice off builders so could anybody advise? It would not be financially feasible to have it removed.
I know the risk is low, but this will be our forever home and we’d hope to bring up a family in it so don’t want to put our kids at risk by skimming over it.
We will be doing some structural work such as taking walks down so it will get damaged.
Thanks for any help!

Davesnave

I'm confused. If you don't want to remove it for financial reasons, and you don't want to skim over it, how do you imagine any of us can advise you?

If it were me and the plaster underneath was in good condition, I'd just have it skimmed. I don't consider the amount and type of asbestos that might be present in artex coatings to be a large risk, once they are encapulated, so that would be a logical approach for me.

martindow

You could always pay an asbestos company to take a sample and test it. It could be asbestos free.

There are some people who just test and don't offer removal if you are worried about conflicts of interest.

There are also some companies that offer kits where you take the sample and post it to them. They give advice on how to do this safely. I've no idea how safe and reliable these are.

StephHarvey

I am asking if it is safe to skim over as there will be building work done so it!!!8217;s not as simple as skimming a ceiling which is be happy to do. The walls and ceiling are all fake beams nailed onto artex (I know, sounds lovely!) so would have to be removed there prior to skimming which would have to damage artex. My question is basically is this safe as it!!!8217;s not feasible to remove it.
Thanks for advice re testing, I!!!8217;ll maybe ask the seller, never know it might not even be asbestos - !!!55358;!!!56606;!!!55356;!!!57340;

Owain_Moneysaver

Given the amount of artex and the nature of the work you plan, your only answer is to get it tested. Builders may demand test evidence before quoting for work anyway.

And be aware that walls and ceilings may have been done at different times by previous owners, so you'd need to test at least one wall and ceiling in each room.

krmach

We had asbestos in the ceiling of an office building our company purchased. I had it tested first as it covers a considerable area. The asbestos removal company advised that as long as the ceiling won't be punctured or there won't be lots of work done to it, it should be fine to leave as is or skimmed over. The problem is the builders were quite wary of working in a place with asbestos. So I decided to have it removed and done by a professional company certified in dealing with asbestos. It costs around £2700+ for ca. 70sqm of asbestos in the ceiling. It's certainly worth doing it as I won't be worrying what's looming in our heads all the time.

If it's your forever house and you'll be raising your kids there, it won't be a waste of money to get rid of that horrible stuff. Get quotes and do it.

StephHarvey

Luckily the current owners built the house in 1983 and I’m confident it was all done together and hasn’t been touched since the initial build apart from the master bedroom which they re-did at a later date with extra special really thick spiky artex lol! Will contact a specialist company tomorrow.

JohnB47

The Hospital where I worked had a guy come round a few years ago testing various surfaces for asbestos. He wore no safety gear, just picked a small area off each surface and placed a small sample of it in a small bag, labelled it and took pictures. Then he applied some sealant to the small damaged area.

Later, some other guys came dressed in all the safety gear and replaced some parts (eg covers over boarded-in pipework). Many parts were not replaced, so were not asbestos.

Curiously one part was a stick-on pad under the stainless sink bowl, They decided to paint over this rather than remove the whole sink.

We have artex in our 1930s house - in the hall and most ceilings. One pair of decorators did one of the rooms for us and simply hacked it all off before lining. No safety gear at all.

We just just leave it alone and paint over.

In your case, however with so much of it, I would choose to have it tested, preferably by a company that doesn't have an interest in doing the work.

Otherwise you're trying to make a decision without all of the facts.

Perhaps at least try a kit? Just do an internet search. I might try a kit myself sometime.

Mupette

My dad was an asbestos stripper, now living with asbestosis etc.

It was back in the 70's and 80's no special gear was worn.

It would be cheaper to cover it. If it's too much money to remove it, start saving.

Bigphil1474

OP, we had it all over our main bedroom and living room. Unfortunately we had a bit of subsidence, but turned out to be lucky as the insurer's contractor tested all the artex and found that it did contain asbestos and it all had to come off before they could repair the damage. We actually had 3 layers of artex in the living room - they tested the oldest layer. They had to strip the walls back to brick under controlled conditions, and then it was all re-plastered. Fortunately it was all covered under the subsidence claim.


The problem you will have is that if it does contain asbestos, they will have to remove it under fully controlled conditions - which is v. expensive. They basically empty the room, seal it off, and strip the artex and everything else back to brick and dispose of all the waste as asbestos waste. The operatives have to wear full safety gear, with 3 stage air locks into the sealed room, and a decontamination unit outside for the workers etc. and usually needs 2 or 3 people. They then have to clean the room to remove all traces of the dust as well - in case there's any fibres. If they did that in every room, the costs will soon add up. On the flipside, if you got someone in to look at re-plastering or skimming all the walls as they are now, and they were happy to just hack off the artex, then I'd be wary.

Your best bet is to have the artex tested if you are confident it's all from the same era. If it does contain asbestos, option 1 would be to plan out which walls you may be removing/disturbing/drilling into etc. and have the artex removed from those, or if it's not much more expensive, option 2 is get everything removed at the same time.


The danger with asbestos is the fibres getting into the lungs - even drilling into an artex wall with asbestos in it is risky, so even if it is skimmed over, you need to remember not to ever drill into that wall which might be a pain if you want new light switches fitting in 5 years, or want to fix a wall mounted TV bracket etc. . I'd suggest it's worth investing in having it done now.