Asbestos concrete sheeting i think - broken!

[chewymix]

Hi

I am having some building work done and a new soil stack put in - This goes down the outside of the house through the roof of an old outside toilet roof and into the existing drain.

The builder has already made a hole in this roof and run the soil pipe and will be making another one to run the waste from the sink and bath.

This is what concerns me as i think by looking at it that the inner skin of this outside toilet is concrete asbestos sheeting. Around a cm thick and sort of smooth looking but now broken looks a bit like fiberglass, its sort of grey colour inside. Is this concrete asbestos sheeting and what are the risks now that a section has been broken through to run this soil stack. The area this was done is outside the house but inside a sort of lean to that is on the back of the house.

Any help/tips would be great. Builder seemed to just do it and did not care less and there is no broken bits around any more but i wonder what i should do as he will have to go through another sheet to run the other pipes so i am thinking of removing the sheet thats in his way before hw breaks a hole in it! (edit) actually the place where he'll run the other pipes is just plaster thankfully.

Any thoughts? Is the house contaminated?

thanks

This is a pic of what i mean

Untitled

• chewymix
• 17 Oct 2009
• 1

 

[scott1980]

Can't get a clear enough image from your picture, but that does'nt look like asbestos cement to me, as you say, it appears to be fibreglass. AC usually breaks very cleanly, almost like glass.

 

[chewymix]

OK thanks - i dont know what it is but perhaps its not asbestos concrete afterall. I mopped out the area and wore a mask and applied some gaffa tape to the broken edges just to make sure nothing could go airborne. I was not in the area when they did it but there were not clouds of dust that i saw so perhaps this is something more benign.

As it is i looked on the HSE site and they state that AC even when broken is not deemed that dangerous as apparently the concrete keeps the asbestos fibres locked in so i am not going to fret about this. I was down at the inlaws last night and they kinda laughed when i told them about the AC and the father informed me that he rubbed that down and painted it and is still alive, pointing at an asbestos flue in the kitchen going from the boiler!

Maybe this asbestos thing is played up too much in the media, either way i am going to move on from this.

thanks

 

[chewymix]

spoke to the builder this am and he claims that its a fibreglass type board rather than asbestos concrete. I am not sure either way but as he was the one going the knocking about then if he was happy to be in there doing it, fine.

move on and wait for the next problem to crop up!