Asbestos in early Artex?

[N_Cook]

Is there ? I suppose a way to check is to break a piece off and look under a low pawer microscope, but how to tell if its glass filaments or asbestos?

[harry]

The fibres are examined under polarised light under a microscope by an expert.

It's cheaper to assume it is asbestos and treat it accordingly. Usually be covering up in the case of Artex.

[The Natural Philosopher]

There certainly was, but in a binder like that its totally harmless.

Unless you run it through a blender and snort the resultant powder. But even then I'd say the binder itself would be more toxic.

Anything that stays stuck in the lungs is a health hazard, which is why smoking, that stops you coughing up crap, is so dangerous

[Martin Brown]

Yes. But you need crossed polarisers to see if it is crystalline rather than an amorphous glass fibre. How dangerous it is depends on the type.

White < brown < blue. I once identified a largish structure insulated on the inside with blue asbestos that was dropping off in chunks. It was a specialist team removal job after that. Prior to that students were throwing pieces of it at each other. This was in the 70's.

Malcolm McClaren was killed by mesothelioma resulting from distressing his premises so the risk is not entirely theoretical or rare and it is a very nasty way to die. Industrial laggers used to die of it until fairly recently (most of those exposed have long since died).

[dennis]

That is probably true, mineral fibres have very low toxicity. However its not the toxic properties of asbestos that kills you. So I would disregard any further advice on the subject as you either know little or are just trying to confuse the issue.

Even if you do cough, asbestos doesn't get out, it stays lodged in the lungs and over time it can cause problems, the more of it you have and the longer you have it the more likely there is to be a problem.

There is evidence that smoking makes the problems more likely.

[dennis]

They think my brother has the first signs of asbestos exposure. He used to be a joiner and they made fire doors in the early 70s and that's when they think he was exposed. He never worked on the doors so don't think you have to do work on asbestos to get exposed.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well exactly. Its quantity times persistence times time for any foreign body that gets stuck inside you.

but by fgr9nding up asbestos, you don't get little fibres.

You didn't seem to follow the logic.

Once asbestos has bee well bound, it ends to be lumpy not fibrous, and grinding it up doesn't release a fibre dust, more a binder dust.

Where it is truly dangerous is where it exists in fibre form. Boiler lagging and the like.

Exactly, because some DOES get coughed up.

The problem with asbestos FIBRE is that like smoking it screws with the cough reflex.

Asbestosis is a fairly well understood disease.

I suggest you read up on it

[dennis]

Asbestos is a fibrous material, you would have to be very careful not to have fibres left from any operation. just randomly grinding it may well produce fibres small enough to inhale and large enough to cause problems.

But not the only problem with asbestos.

I suggest you read up on them.

[Chris French]

In message , N_Cook writes

You can send off samples to be analysed - not very expensive IIRC when I looked it up.

Though unless you are going to be doing lots of work on it to create dust/fibres I wouldn't worry about it. As artex on the celing it's fine.

[The Natural Philosopher]

And frankly, water and a face mask and gloves is all you need to get rid of it safely anyway.

steaming it off with a stripper is probably as good as it gets.

It's fibrous dust in your lungs you really don't need..

damp it down and be careful with masks etc

[N_Cook]

I cannot find dates for any dividing line between asbestos reinforced types in use, and the later presumably safer fibre reinforcement

[mcp]

I think it was 1984 that the manufacturer of Artex stopped using asbestos but it was still in the supply chain for a couple more years and it wasn't actually banned until 1999.