Asbestos In Old Victorian Ceiling

[NOSPAMnet]

I live in a Glasgow Victorian tenement flat .The flats are about 100 years old . The flat two floors down from me has been having an ongoing problem for some time with water ingress from the flat above and the owner ( the flat is presently rented out while he is in Germany) has been dragging his feet to get it sorted .Recently the bathroom in the rented flat was renovated ,incl tiling the floor (silly) .A week ago a burst in this flat while the tenant was out caused the ceiling in the lower flat to cave in .The owners had to seek the help of Fire & Rescue to break in to the flat above to sort the problem ( they turned the CH water supply off as it was hot water that was coming down).

The owner of the lower flat showed me the damage ( which is in two rooms as a previous occurence had brought part of another ceiling down) . While In the room affected by the most recent event he muttered that someone had told him that the ceiling might have asbestos in it but to me this sounds very unlikely . It's just the original L+P ceiling as far as I could tell from what I saw when looking up at the hole.

Is it really likely that asbestos was used in a ceiling ?

Stuart

[meow2222]

no, why would one add expensive asbestos to cheap effective lime

NT

[dom]

Not as far as I'm aware in lathe and plaster ceilings. Because it's the boundary between flats though, it's possible that the fire protection was upgraded at some point - possibly from above when the dodgy pipework was installed.

[Onetap]

White asbestos was used in Artex, so it is possible. Send some double- bagged samples to an analysing lab ib your area. =A325 or =A330 a sample, I'd guess, calim on his insurance.

[Onetap]

Possible, that is, if the lath & plaster ceiling had suffered later embellishment with the ubiquitous textured coating.

[NOSPAMnet]

I'm sure it was just a flat L+P ceiling .No Artex or anyhting

[NOSPAMnet]

I very much doubt that .

[John Rumm]

Only up to about 1984 IIRC - after that it is ok.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Never asbestos, but often some fibrous material added. Eraly composites :-) Horsehair was a fairly normal additive I think.

Anna Kettle probably knows what is likely.

Anyway, nothing hazardous. Rip and skip it all out and plasterboard.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember [e-mail] saying something like:

Nup. Highly unlikely - I know those old Glasgow ceilings from having some fall on me as a kid and I can tell you there's all sorts of s**te in the void, but asbestos is highly unlikely. Did you notice if the ceiling void was filled with a clinkery material for soundproofing?

[NOSPAMnet]

Not that I noticed .If it's anything like what's under my floorboards it will be any old shit as you say . It helps with soundproofing.

Anytime I had boards up I just swept the crap lying around in to the gap .

[Andrew Gabriel]

Even if it does, it's perfectly safe as long as the ceiling stays wet ;-)