How Do You Know If You've Found Asbestos?
Once a popular building material, asbestos is lurking in properties up and down the country, but in all likelihood, you won’t know it’s there. If you think there is asbestos in your property, this blog could help you. We will discuss how people can tell if asbestos is present and help identify whether it should be removed. Clearaway Asbestos specialises in asbestos removal in Wimbledon and is here to help provide more information about it and how to identify it.
How Do You Identify Asbestos?
Asbestos is not only strong but also heat and chemical-resistant, which is why it was so widely used in building materials before it was banned in the UK. Asbestos takes many forms and is incredibly hard to identify by sight alone. It’s often covered up or painted over, but sometimes stray fibres can appear when a material containing asbestos starts to deteriorate or gets damaged.
This is where you will need an asbestos inspector to take some samples and send them off to the lab for testing. We can then work on the asbestos removal.
How Likely Is It That You've Found Asbestos?
Asbestos has been banned in the United Kingdom since 1999, so if your property was built after this, you’re unlikely to find it in your home or workplace.
Any building that was built before the year 2000 could contain asbestos. The older the property, the more likely it is that you’ve found asbestos. Some experts think that as many as 1.5 million buildings in the UK still contain ACM (asbestos-containing materials).
Below is a few places you are likely to find asbestos if your home was built before the year 2000:
- Floor tiles
- Loft insulation
- Asbestos Insulating Board (AIB)
- Water tanks
- Roofing felt
- Roof panels (particularly on garages and sheds)
- Cement pipes
All of these items are commonly found in the home, so before tampering, with any, it’s best to call us here at Clearaway for safe asbestos removal.
Asbestos Removal
If the asbestos is in poor condition, it must be removed by a professional remover like us. Asbestos can cause several incurable health conditions caused by breathing in loose fibres, and your risk increases the longer you are exposed to it. Asbestos should also be checked and removed before any building work around the area is started. Starting building work and knocking down walls, pulling up flooring or changing pipes could disturb the fibres and make them airborne.
You should never attempt to remove or repair asbestos yourself. Only licenced contractors have the right equipment and training to remove and dispose of asbestos safely, so you should leave it to the professionals.
Clearaway Asbestos are here to help with all asbestos removal. We are trained professionals and follow all the correct health and safety measures. We also follow a safe removal process, ensuring the disposal of the asbestos-containing material is safe and doesn’t contaminate more than it needs to.
