"sPoNiX" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 7 Sep 2004 06:42:29 +0100, "troubleinstore"
wrote:

My friend recently had water coming in through the roof and into the
bathroom. The ceiling was only very slightly damaged.
The insurance company sent someone to repair the roof and then they sent
someone to do a test on the artex that was on the ceiling. The house, ex
local authority, he has lived there from build, has only been built about
30 years and it was artexed from new. The results were that the artex
contained a small amount of asbestos.
Result, the insurance company are sending a special team round to rip all
the ceiling down, then someone is going round to put a new ceiling up and
do
all the plastering, then someone else is going to do the wallpapering.
My friend was told that if a house is over a certain age then where artex
is
involved, they have to by law have it checked.
Anyone heard of this before.....?

Old Artex does indeed contain asbestos but is perfectly safe.

fair enough, the general best advice with asbestos is leave it alone...
perfectly safe is maybe stretching things a little bit though.

The only
potential hazard is if the ceiling is damaged or drilled and even then
if you take care not to breathe the dust you'd be OK.

This strikes me as increadibly bad advice to even remotely suggesting
drilling into it.
I'm just wondering how in hell you manage to avoid breathing in the dust?
Anytime I've drilled any hole in the ceiling, my drill, my hand, arm and
clothes are covered in dust, and there is a fair amount floating about the
room too. We're not talking a wee paper mask to ensure that you don't
breathe in the dust, its a full face jobby, but then you'll have to take
that off to shower the dust out your hair etc. so you'd better make sure
you've got on a disposable overall, with hood as well.

Given that very low levels of inhaled dust can cause a problem the only
advice is leave it alone.


The insurance company are just covering their backsides, imho.

I would imagine that they are more likely to be following health and safety
laws

cheers

David