Asbestos

gadget88

So the house I grew up in had pop corn artex ceilings and my first home and current home have it. I googled and on forums they said it’s a risk. My entire street has it and I can name lots round here and towns near me which have it. I have anxiety about this sort of stuff but lots of other houses have similar ceilings? My house was built in 1997 not keen to disturb the artex as seemingly it can release fibres into to air. I imagine there must be thousands of houses with this stuff? 

p00hsticks

If you google ' when did Artex stop using asbestos' you'll find that Artex stopped using asbestos in its product the UK in 1984, and the use of any remaining stock still containing it was prohibited by UK and EU legislation in 1992, so if your house was only built in 1997 you are worrying unnecessarily. 

MysteryMe

I'd just leave it be, if it's not interfered with then it's not causing an issue. 

Using the internet can give a distorted view on things and often lacks context. How many of us have used the internet to diagnose some sort of pain or ailment and next thing we self diagnose we have a terminal condition and months to live.

Not all artex has asbestos in any case. 

stuart45

There are thousands. Artex used to be really popular, especially on ceilings.
Even if you move into a house with smooth ceilings it could still have Artex under a plaster skim.

kimwp

You can get it tested. They take little samples and test them.

Bigphil1474

We use a basic rule of thumb at work that anything built before 2000 may contain asbestos and anything after won't. It's not exact. Having said that, Artex is a specific product and as above the asbestos content was phased out from the mid 80's onwards. Even if the artex in your property did contain asbestos, it's the least dangerous type (usually chrysotile) and very small percentage.

We had artex in our old house that had asbestos in it (found out as it had to be removed by the insurers after some subsidence) - we'd lived with it for 15 years before it was removed. So long as it isn't crumbling away, or so long as you don't start drilling into it or sanding it, it'll most likely be fine anyway. An educated guess would be that you don't have anything to be worried about, but as above, you could have a sample tested. You can buy  a testing kit which you collect the sample yourself and send off, or pay someone to do it all - the latter is more expensive. Possibly worth it to ease your mind. Alternatively, you could get it skimmed over and the risk is virtually nil (unless you start drilling into it etc.).