Asbestos flooring tiles - council house

[Funtimes]

Hey folks,

Hoping you lovely people could share a bit of wisdom please?

My friend just moved into a council house and there are tiles throughout the downstairs which are confirmed as asbestos. They don't look in great condition (to me) and my friend is concerned.

I spoke to the housing officer when she was there and she was very dismissive that it's nothing to worry about and all they would do is remove damaged ones. She also said don't worry we all have asbestos in our houses.

I mentioned the bitumin often contains azzy and she said its not bitumin it's paint on the concrete screed. I'm not convinced so I pressed her on how often azzy inspections are carried out. She said 10-15 years but don't worry blah blah blah. They also won't remove the broken azzy pipe in the attic but I have not seen this. What do you guys think, nothing doing or should my friend push this issue with the council?

 

[Tigercubrider]

I wouldn’t be concerned, but a random worker replacing tiles should be aware that using a vacuum to clean up could spread more fibres (if any exist) into the air. An H grade cleaner would be safer.
You could do a home test? A sample could be taken if there is a broken one and it might give peace of mind.

I doubt that the housing officer has any qualifications to judge the risk.
Any risk of the tiles is minimal unless they are disturbed. The bitumen might have asbestos as might the tiles.
Some people would use floor levelling compound to encapsulate the tiles and fill voids, then whack vinyl down.

I have done a couple of awareness courses but am no expert.
I lifted mine, wetting the floor first.
It’s better to leave them than lift if possibe

 

[Funtimes]

Thanks tiger, they are confirmed to contain asbestos as my friend was given a copy of an asbestos survey from 2015.

She is going to put down flooring but we were both a bit nonplussed about how dismissive she was.

 

[endecotp]

The report says “very low” risk for the floor tiles, and you should probably accept that. No doubt you could find some random person on the internet who will tell you that it’s more dangerous than that, but do they know better than whoever prepared the report?

The attitude of the officer does seem a bit odd, but that doesn’t really matter - what matters is the state of the material and what the report says.

 

[Funtimes]

Hi endecotp,

Thank you for that. I'm not doubting the qualifications of the presumably competent person who did the report. The concern was the report was from 2015 and there are broken tiles in places.