Rustyman33
25-05-16, 15:04
Hello everyone, first time posting on this forum. I can see there are a number of you here who have been and are going through troubles, and yet you’re taking the time to help people in need. I commend you all.
I know there are already threads relating to asbestos, I think I’ve read them all. But I’d like to share my personal experience, it’s good to talk right? Here’s my story, and it’s a long one. Please bare with me…
Earlier this year, my girlfriend and I bought our first house together, a semi-detached property in Wales built in 1964. We’ve had quite a lot of work done to it. An electrician has installed new mains and lighting circuits, with new light fittings, new light switches and new sockets. A plumber removed an old immersion heater and gas fire with a back boiler. And a gas fitter installed a new combi boiler and new radiators. Lots of disturbance. We weren’t present and hadn’t moved in when the works were taking place, and the tradesmen cleaned most of the mess up themselves.
One day before we’d moved in, I was removing old carpet from the lounge and hall, as we were having laminate laid down. Underneath the carpet and underlay in the lounge, were some black 9x9 tiles. Some of them were cracked where I’d pulled the carpet out of the carpet grippers. I wondered whether the tiles should stay on the floor or be removed, and my father’s joiner just happened to be there at the time, doing a couple of small jobs for me. I asked him the question, and the answer I got took me back: he said they probably have asbestos in them and to leave them alone. Here’s where the whole saga begins.
At first I didn’t think much of it, but the more I thought about it the more worried I became. So the googling starts, and of course it’s a minefield. I discussed it with my parents, and at one point I ended up bursting into tears. This was enough for them to take it into their own hands. My father made a phone call, and got a guy who’d been in the building trade for thirty years to come and have a look. Without hesitation, he exclaimed there’s no asbestos in them and proceeded to pull them up with his bare hands. I was not present, but my father was. He trusted him, and even helped him with the job. The tiles were double-bagged and left in the back garden.
Once I became aware of this I was horrified. The general consensus seems to be that asbestos is best left alone, rather than disturbed or removed. But I tried to put it to the back of my mind, and a floor fitter subsequently laid the new laminate over where the tiles had been.
A week or so passes, and the worry kept coming back. What if I, my girlfriend, family and friends have been exposed to asbestos!? My father took the bagged tiles to the skip, and I urged him to admit that they might contain asbestos. So he did, and one of the workers there took a tile round the back, broke it up, inspected it, came back and said “I’m not supposed to have done that, but I’m sure they don’t contain asbestos”. That was good to hear, for a moment, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that you cannot tell whether something contains asbestos just by looking at it, a lab has to test a sample. So I called a local environmental consultancy firm, and asked them for advice. The assistant manager there, on more than one occasion, told me that he could do himself out of a job by admitting this, but tiles in particular pose very little concern. If they contain asbestos, it is tightly bound to the material, and you’d have to aggressively saw or sand it for the asbestos to be released into the air. I also learnt that in the case of artex and anaglypta wallpaper, any asbestos that might be contained in them is of the least potent and dangerous.
Despite this, I paid them to come in to conduct a fibre air monitor test. They installed a pump in four locations in the property (including the lounge where the tiles and back boiler were previously situated), and took readings. The attendant even took a look in my loft, and told me the insulation we have up there is not the type that contains dangerous asbestos.
So the report comes back, and to my initial relief the readings came out at <0.01 f/ml (fibres per millilitre), which is indistinguishable from ambient levels of asbestos that can be present anywhere and everywhere. The report wording is “all areas are deemed fit for occupation”.
One would think that this would end the matter, but for me the anxiety is still very much there. I’m trying to put everything into perspective, but it’s proving really difficult. My girlfriend is being incredibly supportive, but she has become frustrated a couple of times, as she feels nothing she can say or do will alleviate my fears, and I can understand her frustration. Friends and family are helping too, but I keep obsessing over the “what if”.
I feel guilty that this has happened, and resentment towards the tradesmen that they didn’t at least warn us (they all knew the age of the property). I feel scared and anxious. I know rational thinking and logic would allow me to take comfort from the report, but the worst-case scenario will just not leave my mind.
Does anybody have any advice please? I hope that deep down I can allow myself to put this to rest. But right now it’s a case of when, and how.
Many thanks for reading.
I know there are already threads relating to asbestos, I think I’ve read them all. But I’d like to share my personal experience, it’s good to talk right? Here’s my story, and it’s a long one. Please bare with me…
Earlier this year, my girlfriend and I bought our first house together, a semi-detached property in Wales built in 1964. We’ve had quite a lot of work done to it. An electrician has installed new mains and lighting circuits, with new light fittings, new light switches and new sockets. A plumber removed an old immersion heater and gas fire with a back boiler. And a gas fitter installed a new combi boiler and new radiators. Lots of disturbance. We weren’t present and hadn’t moved in when the works were taking place, and the tradesmen cleaned most of the mess up themselves.
One day before we’d moved in, I was removing old carpet from the lounge and hall, as we were having laminate laid down. Underneath the carpet and underlay in the lounge, were some black 9x9 tiles. Some of them were cracked where I’d pulled the carpet out of the carpet grippers. I wondered whether the tiles should stay on the floor or be removed, and my father’s joiner just happened to be there at the time, doing a couple of small jobs for me. I asked him the question, and the answer I got took me back: he said they probably have asbestos in them and to leave them alone. Here’s where the whole saga begins.
At first I didn’t think much of it, but the more I thought about it the more worried I became. So the googling starts, and of course it’s a minefield. I discussed it with my parents, and at one point I ended up bursting into tears. This was enough for them to take it into their own hands. My father made a phone call, and got a guy who’d been in the building trade for thirty years to come and have a look. Without hesitation, he exclaimed there’s no asbestos in them and proceeded to pull them up with his bare hands. I was not present, but my father was. He trusted him, and even helped him with the job. The tiles were double-bagged and left in the back garden.
Once I became aware of this I was horrified. The general consensus seems to be that asbestos is best left alone, rather than disturbed or removed. But I tried to put it to the back of my mind, and a floor fitter subsequently laid the new laminate over where the tiles had been.
A week or so passes, and the worry kept coming back. What if I, my girlfriend, family and friends have been exposed to asbestos!? My father took the bagged tiles to the skip, and I urged him to admit that they might contain asbestos. So he did, and one of the workers there took a tile round the back, broke it up, inspected it, came back and said “I’m not supposed to have done that, but I’m sure they don’t contain asbestos”. That was good to hear, for a moment, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that you cannot tell whether something contains asbestos just by looking at it, a lab has to test a sample. So I called a local environmental consultancy firm, and asked them for advice. The assistant manager there, on more than one occasion, told me that he could do himself out of a job by admitting this, but tiles in particular pose very little concern. If they contain asbestos, it is tightly bound to the material, and you’d have to aggressively saw or sand it for the asbestos to be released into the air. I also learnt that in the case of artex and anaglypta wallpaper, any asbestos that might be contained in them is of the least potent and dangerous.
Despite this, I paid them to come in to conduct a fibre air monitor test. They installed a pump in four locations in the property (including the lounge where the tiles and back boiler were previously situated), and took readings. The attendant even took a look in my loft, and told me the insulation we have up there is not the type that contains dangerous asbestos.
So the report comes back, and to my initial relief the readings came out at <0.01 f/ml (fibres per millilitre), which is indistinguishable from ambient levels of asbestos that can be present anywhere and everywhere. The report wording is “all areas are deemed fit for occupation”.
One would think that this would end the matter, but for me the anxiety is still very much there. I’m trying to put everything into perspective, but it’s proving really difficult. My girlfriend is being incredibly supportive, but she has become frustrated a couple of times, as she feels nothing she can say or do will alleviate my fears, and I can understand her frustration. Friends and family are helping too, but I keep obsessing over the “what if”.
I feel guilty that this has happened, and resentment towards the tradesmen that they didn’t at least warn us (they all knew the age of the property). I feel scared and anxious. I know rational thinking and logic would allow me to take comfort from the report, but the worst-case scenario will just not leave my mind.
Does anybody have any advice please? I hope that deep down I can allow myself to put this to rest. But right now it’s a case of when, and how.
Many thanks for reading.