Buying home- Artex

renfirsttimebuy

Hi all, 
So the new place has artex on ceiling (swirls). The house was built in 1996. So i know there are kits to find out if the artex contains asbestos...but my question is will it come up on any searches etc? 
(May be a silly question) 

Thanks 

MCI

It came up on our survey that it could have asbestos in the artex but I can't think what search that would come up in.
We ended up getting a company to test it and it came back negative and we think the artex was before 1996. It wasn't expensive to test. 

davidmcn

There are no relevant "searches" - either you test the artex, or you assume that something that modern won't have asbestos in it (not sure quite when it stopped being an ingredient). Bear in mind the risk is tiny - it was only ever about 1% asbestos, so you'd have to snort a lot of artex dust to suffer ill-effects (other than the other things you'd get from inhaling too much dust!). Asbestos is/was primarily a risk for those who worked with the stuff every day.

pinkteapot

Also bear in mind that even if it's the type that contains asbestos, it's only a problem if disturbed (so if you plan to have it removed). Prior to my current house, I spent 38 years in 80s/90s houses with swirly ceilings. Didn't really give it a second thought and never bothered getting any of them tested for asbestos when buying. 

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I bought an old house with artex ceilings. Haven't got round to replacing them yet; they don't bother me that much. The asbestos is only a problem if you take a sledgehammer to them and inhale deeply.

Not worth worrying about IMO.

thearchitect

As an aside, Artex didn't include asbestos in the premix (at least from 1990 onwards, when I started work) but it was added by some plasterers to increase workability.  I've never found it in any samples which I've tested but expect to do so, one day.