Is the artex
on your ceiling
asbestos?
A test answers it in a few days and costs very little. Guessing does not, and disturbing it before you know is the one thing you must not do.
Age is the
first indicator.
Textured coatings were widely used on ceilings and some walls from the 1960s onwards, and many formulations included a small percentage of chrysotile asbestos to help the material work. The use of asbestos in these coatings was banned in the UK in 1999, and a total ban followed in 1999 to 2000.
So the rule of thumb most surveyors apply is straightforward. If the coating was applied before 2000, treat it as though it contains asbestos until a test says otherwise. If the property was built or the ceiling redecorated after that, it almost certainly does not.
The difficulty is that you usually cannot date a ceiling by looking at it, and repainting does not change what is underneath. That is why reports hedge and recommend testing rather than committing either way.
The reassuring part: a textured coating that is intact, painted and undisturbed is generally not considered a risk to occupants. The risk comes from disturbing it, which means sanding, scraping, drilling or knocking it about during other works.
Do not sand it,
scrape it or drill it.
The single worst thing you can do with a textured ceiling of unknown age is attack it with a sander or a scraper. That is precisely the action that releases fibres into the room, and it turns a contained material into an airborne one across the whole house.
The same applies to running cables, fitting downlights or putting up a ceiling hook without knowing what the coating is. Drilling a small hole seems harmless and it is still a disturbance.
If you have already disturbed something and you are worried about it, stop, close the room off and get it tested rather than cleaning up, because ordinary vacuuming spreads fibres rather than removing them.
None of this is a reason to panic about a ceiling you have lived under for years. It is a reason not to start work on it this weekend.
Test first,
then decide.
A small sample is taken under controlled conditions and sent to a laboratory. The result comes back in a few days and tells you whether asbestos is present and in what form. That single step removes all the guesswork and it is inexpensive relative to the work that follows.
If the result is negative, the coating can be removed, skimmed over or overboarded like any other finish, and it becomes an ordinary plastering job.
If the result is positive, the removal is carried out and certified by our accredited delivery partners under the appropriate controls. GMAS does not hold an asbestos licence and does not represent otherwise. What we do is manage the whole sequence so it is one job rather than four phone calls: the test, the licensed removal and its certification, then the replastering and making good afterwards.
Overboarding is sometimes an alternative to removal. A new plasterboard ceiling is fixed below the existing one, encapsulating the coating rather than taking it out. It is cheaper and less disruptive, it loses a small amount of ceiling height, and it means the material is still there and has to be declared when you sell.
What your report
probably said.
Surveyors are careful with this one because they are not permitted to confirm or rule out asbestos visually. Typical wording is textured coatings are present which, given the age of the property, may contain asbestos, and specialist testing is recommended prior to any disturbance.
Some reports go further and list it under matters for your legal adviser, which is about disclosure on sale rather than about safety today.
If your report mentions textured coatings and you are buying, this is one of the cheapest items on the list to resolve before you exchange, and a positive test is a legitimate point in a price discussion because it commits the buyer to a licensed cost.
Questions we get
asked most.
Get a written
price.
Monday to Saturday, 9am to 8pm. All London boroughs.
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Areas we cover.
We take artex and asbestos removal work across all 32 London boroughs. Most of our work is in west London, in Shepherd's Bush, Hammersmith, Fulham, Kensington, Chiswick and White City, and in south west London, in Putney, Wandsworth and Wimbledon. We also work in south east London, in Greenwich, Blackheath and Lewisham.
If your property is outside these areas, call us anyway. We travel across London and will tell you honestly if a job is too far to price properly.