Artex ceilings, Light fittings & Asbestos

It seemed like trade persons were never much bothered about asbestos installed in properties in the 80's & 90's

when did they become more aware of asbestos issues?

Or did I just work for the wrong people?

It seemed like trade persons were never much bothered about asbestos installed in properties in the 80's & 90's

when did they become more aware of asbestos issues?

Or did I just work for the wrong people?

These things take about half a generation to become common knowledge and in a pre-internet era, only the very keen folk would be keeping up to date with every last change in the advice since whenever they qualified.

The idea of the average workman working to the latest edition of every rule book is actually quite modern. 

From the 1970s onwards the data about how bad it could be really became very obvious to those looking at the latest figures, but it took time to change - hence artex formula changing in the mid 80s, along with  brake pads and a host of other things. The law limited blue asbestos first, then brown then eventually all of it a nice timeline summary here  .

Of course most folk would only loosely be following this, as almost no-one reads legislation the day it  is made, and old stocks of materials would be used up first and so there is a good chance of a nasty surprise in any  buildings older than about 20 years.

Mike.