Artex ceilings, Light fittings & Asbestos

If you are not sure, pause. Actually of all things a painted artex ceiling is a low risk even if it is pre 1984, assuming it is not all de-laminating, at least until you want to make holes in it. The problem  is that happens a lot for lights, fire alarms etc, so there is some higher risk for electrical work.

The UK HSE have some good advice for occasional hole drillers, click here .

Basically do not go in gung-ho, but some very simple techniques to trap the dust, like damping the area, drilling through a splat of shaving foam or if you do a lot, then buying the right sort of vacuum cleaner, can reduce your exposure very significantly, and painting or sealing exposed edges afterwards protects those who follow you.

There is a lot of more general advice here as well

Part of the problem is that asbestos is a bit of a lottery- any one exposure may or may not matter, and you will not know, perhaps even for decades but clearly the more often you roll the dice the greater the chances of your numbers coming up early.

But blowing the dust about and then breathing it in is not sensible

Mike

The main reason I ask is I did a few jobs when I was younger and nobody informed me of the dangers, if fact I didn’t even know Artex had asbestos until years later!

Was this common in the ninety’s?

Unfortunately the electricians I worked with were not the best!

from the mid 80s onwards things like Artex were re-formulated to essentially remove the asbestos. In the UK it was only ever white asbestos, so not the worst risk, but on the other hand there is a lot of it about, and your chance of getting some exposure at some point is quite high.

And yes -  it kills a few thousand folk year in the UK.

Mike

It’s quite troubling to think homes and schools contain Asbestos!

It’s quite troubling to think homes and schools contain Asbestos!