Plumbers and asbestos

[Neil Rowland.]

Hello I was just wondering if anybody knows how often a plumber would have to deal with asbestos in the uk in 2018?

 

[townfanjon]

Hopefully not at all

 

[Christopher buzzard]

Had it quite abit lately with artex ceilings when I have to drill through for pipe drops ect. Not sure on dates but I think traces of asbestos was in artex even in the early 90s. We have it tested before the jobs are started.

 

[king of pipes]

its still out there you have to careful when your working on old installations . cheers kop

 

[townfanjon]

Why do you ask ?

 

[Ric2013]

I've come across it in old tap gland packings. Luckily it was wet and I've heard that the fibres used in rope tend to be longer and less easy to make airbourne. Not had it tested, but once dry it still wouldn't burn or melt and seemed immune to heat damage.
Agree with Artex containing asbestos: sent samples of the textured coatings in my own house to a lab and quite a lot tested positive for asbestos, as did the vinyl floor tiles. Worryingly, Artex is often simply skimmed over, thus hiding it!
Can also be found in pipe lagging, plastic window boards, plastic toilet cisterns, asbestos cement rainwater and roofing goods, bitumen mastics and reinforced bitumen paints.
Basically, almost any house built before 2000 may contain asbestos, and anything pre-1990 probably does, so you have to be eternally vigilant. As a tradesman I always look out for possible asbestos containing materials before quoting, and always warn on quotations that, as I am not qualified to work with asbestos (and to disturb asbestos professionally, you need to be), if I find asbestos, I may need to modify my plan to avoid distubing it, or stop work until the asbestos has been removed by others.
The HSE tells me that the legal requirement is to treat everything as if it were asbestos, unless it is either proven otherwise, or shows strong indications of being something else e.g. wood or metal. I know people who do break the law and I wouldn't want them and their asbestos contaminated tools working in my house!

 

[Best]

Asbestos is still about if you do work on any homes that are more than 20 years old.
Gutters, downpipes, water pipes, flue pipes, roof tiles, soffits, boiler parts, pipe laging, electric heaters, stick down vinyl floor tiles, Bakelite toilet cisterns all can contain asbestos.

 

[plumbandplumber]

Some plumbers don't seem too worried about asbestos.

Next level!!

 

[Ric2013]

Yeah, and this is the problem. Do you lose jobs to the 'cowboys' who say 'there was some asbestos but we've dealt with it', possibly thinking they have genuinely done the customer a favour by saving them £500 or whatever for the cost of having a hole cut through the ceiling safely and legally, and then, 20 years later, the old lady's grandson develops mesothelioma?

Personally I'm in favour of an asbestos service, run by the government, to deal with all asbestosy things. And an absolute ban on anyone else touching it personally or in the way of trade, with very severe penalties for infringement, and the same to anyone allowing others to infringe.

You'd have to do a full survey of everything for this to work.

But while it would cost money to fund, we'd save a fortune on NHS and on not having trademen and customers' working lives cut short.

 

[Stigster]

Loads of good info here on what contains asbestos but one I haven't seen mentioned, the anti-noise pad on the underside of many older stainless sinks contain asbestos. Fortunately we never have to drill or cut there but may need to be taken into account at disposal.