ARTEX WALLS

sophiehoppo24

Hi All,

I’ve recently bought a house a discovered the horror of Artex walls. We’ve ordered an asbestos test and booked in with a plasterer to board up the ceilings and skim the walls for us.

However in the meantime I have a question. If our test comes back positive for asbestos, even with skimming the walls etc, will the Artex underneath still pose a risk when putting up pictures, shelves etc?

Thanks 

GDB2222

If you drill into it, you’ll create dust. So, yes there’s some risk.

You could save the cost of skimming over the Artex. If you wait long enough, it will come back into fashion.  It will be a period feature, and everyone will be gob smacked that people covered it up.

Section62

GDB2222 said:

If you drill into it, you’ll create dust. So, yes there’s some risk.

You could save the cost of skimming over the Artex. If you wait long enough, it will come back into fashion.  It will be a period feature, and everyone will be gob smacked that people covered it up.

...and someone will develop a product which will soften the plaster skim and allow it to be washed/brushed off, leaving the artex undamaged for all to see.

Simonon77

sophiehoppo24 said:

Hi All,

I’ve recently bought a house a discovered the horror of Artex walls. We’ve ordered an asbestos test and booked in with a plasterer to board up the ceilings and skim the walls for us.

However in the meantime I have a question. If our test comes back positive for asbestos, even with skimming the walls etc, will the Artex underneath still pose a risk when putting up pictures, shelves etc?

Thanks 

Seriously though, the risk is very very minimal. Not all artex had asbestos in it, and even the stuff that did had a very low amount. Think about how many people used to use it on ceilings and walls, and how many cases you actually hear about people having health problems caused by drilling into it.

The plasterer will have to screw or hammer into it to reboard, and could potentially knock small pieces off skimming so would be at a lot more risk than you if you put a couple of pictures up

Section62

Simonon77 said:

Seriously though, the risk is very very minimal. Not all artex had asbestos in it, and even the stuff that did had a very low amount.

That isn't correct in all cases.  Some textured coatings were made up on site with the operative adding however much asbestos fibre they felt was right for the job.  Therefore some people may come across 'artex'-like materials with relatively high asbestos contents.  This is one of the growing concerns with materials of this type - the asbestos content is variable so the risk is harder to assess than say manufactured products.

Simonon77 said:

Think about how many people used to use it on ceilings and walls, and how many cases you actually hear about people having health problems caused by drilling into it.

This is a bit of a non-sequitur.  The health impacts from asbestos exposure typically happen some considerable time after exposure, and exposure often happens because people are unaware the material they are working with is asbestos-containing.

Therefore by the time health problems emerge, it is unlikely the source of exposure can be narrowed down to a specific event or series of events.  People will guess at what their exposure might have been, if you don't know you've been drilling asbestos-containing textured coatings (especially if they had been skimmed with plaster) you won't necessarily guess that was the source of exposure.  People typically have multiple exposures to different sources, so pinning somone's health problems down to a specific action (e.g. drilling into 'artex') is virtually impossible.

Oldernowiser

We successfully removed very thick artex from a 10ft x 12ft  room covered skirting to ceiling (and the ceiling), and another room 21ft x 15ft coated to Dado rail height,  with a product called X-TEX, readily available from Toolstation/Screwfix etc. 
It does require a significant amount of simple but hard graft to shift that amount of material, however it is safe provided working area is kept damp - NO DUST. 
Trial and error found us pasting on the X-Tex and leaving for several hours to penetrate, sometimes covering working area with stretch-wrap overnight, then using 4" scraper blades (removable 'razor' blade type)  just like removing wallpaper. All the removed artex was bagged up as we went (we sourced bags printed with 'Asbestos Waste' ), and taken to local tip ( free, legal and proper Council site). 
We actually don't know whether 'our' artex contained asbestos or not (believed done it mid/late 80's), just didn't want to take any chances. 
It wasn't cheap, however we obviously saved labour cost, had a blast singing along to golden oldies for hours, and ended up with fairly smooth walls/ceilings.