Hi

Asbestos has been or was around for many years in houses and peoples work places.

I only know of one person, an electrician who did many house renovations who got this type of cancer.

I do worry as my husband has been in the building trade all his working life an used to mix artex and apply it to walls for a time.

I think your risk is minimal but next time you have a Drs appointment, maybe just mention it.

x

just found this old post

24 Nov 2019 12:32

Asbestos in Artex ceiling

24 Nov 2019 12:32 in response to kt111

Hi Everyone,

Posts on asbestos invariably generate a lot of scaremongering by the badly informed, causing unnecessary worry.

Hopefully I can put your mind at ease.  Firstly your risk is to all intents nil.

Asbestos is a historic name rather than a scientific term.  So-called white asbestos is not chemicaly related to the other forms of asbestos.  It's fibres are short, soft and curly rather than being long, hard and barbed.  They also naturally dissolve in the acid present in your lungs, whereas other 'forms' of asbestos are acid resistant.  Chemically white asbestos is closely related to talcum powder.  Talc isn't a particularly great thing to be inhaling, and I'd highly recommend avoiding it, but it's nowhere near as dangerous as blue or brown asbestos.  So just to repeat white asbestos is not chemically related to the other forms of asbestos, and is in fact an entirely separate compound.  In short it isn't really asbestos per se.

Artex only ever contained white asbestos, and only at around 1 - 4.5% of it's total content.  Even if you used a power sander on it, like my father did throughout several of the ceilings in our bungalow back in the 80s (we're all still alive and well thanks), you're at no more risk than you would be from plaster or Polyfilla.  It will all be long gone from your bodies by now.

The risk of blue asbestos (the most dangerous form) is also somewhat overstated.  While you definately don't want to go inhaling blue asbestos dust for ***** & giggles, the reality is that it's naturally occurring and its fibres are unbiqutous in the environoment.  Everyone (except perhaps for some members of remote tribes) will already have millions of blue asbestos fibres happily lodged in their lungs, and very few go on to develop cancer.  We're literally breathing small quantities of blue asbestos fibres every single day, to little or no ill effect.  While in theory just one fibre can cause illness, the chances of that occurring are infinitessimally small, otherwise we'd all be long dead.  Almost everyone adversely affected by asbestos has inhaled significant quantities of the stuff.  Even then there are thousands of people who were massively exposed on shipyards who have not gone on to develop the disease, with many heavily exposed as teenagers going on to live well beyond the average lifespan.  My father also numbers among those exposed in this manner and he'll be 83 next year.  And yeah, there are also a tiny minority of extremely unfortunate people who have developed asbestos related illnesses from just natutal background exposure, but them's just the breaks.

One thing that does make a huge difference to the likely outcome is smoking, which has been shown to increase the risks by around 40 fold, so if you're looking for an excuse to quit...

In summary, the stuff you've been exposed to is no worse than talc, and your talc exposure almost certainly exceeds your white asbestos exposure.  It's not recommended to go inhaling either but you absolutely aren't at any risk of developing an asbestos related cancer from this misadventure

Thank you

Thank you, obviously I'm still a little worried but thank you all