What’s the likelihood of this fireplace cement containing asbestos?

[ranner17]

I know that you can’t tell from a picture, but this relates to something in the past and we can’t access this to test now. I’m basically just curious and totally clueless so having trouble finding an answer on google - but was asbestos cement used in fireplaces to surround a flue pipe like in this picture below?

Cheers

 

[jeds]

No. Asbestos cement isn't 'cement', it is a type of rigid board material that was essentially made of cement and contained asbestos. What you are looking at there is fire cement.

 

[^woody^]

Asbestos putty/paste/cement was used around asbestos flue pipes to form the joint.

It was not used in brickwork mortar.

 

[ranner17]

Thank you both, that’s really helpful. Can I just clarify then (trying to put my wife’s mind at rest here…), fire cement didn’t contain asbestos and @^woody^ , we’re not looking at the asbestos putty or paste that you mention?

If it’s relevant, the house is approx 1910s, but I have no idea at all when that cement was added.

Thanks again.

 

[jeds]

The photo shows either fire cement, or it may even be just standard cement mortar. Asbestos putty is sticky stuff from a tube or tub that was used around flue pipe joints. Not the same thing. I'm not aware of any fire cement that contained asbestos but if it did, to get it to float around in the air, you'd have to smash it up into tiny little dust sized particles, and even then it would be no more harmful than ordinary building dust. The type asbestos contained in old building materials is not the same as the nasty asbestos types used in pipe lagging.

 

[^woody^]

Normally an asbestos joint product may have been used on asbestos flue or pipe joints - so asbestos pipe used as a flue to a boiler or suchlike or asbestos pipe used as waste drainage pipe connected to WC pans or suchlike.

In the situation above, if there was an asbestos flue pipe then there may have been joints from asbestos material and how the pipe terminated may have determined if there may have been asbestos material as a joint to either any appliance connected to the flue or around the flue external sealing it to the brickwork.

Knowing what was at the bottom of the flue or if the flue pipe was in fact asbestos would help.

But typically in the absence of an asbestos flue pipe, or board linings then there would not be any asbestos in a brick fire place.

 

[ranner17]

Thank you both so much, again!

@jeds , the reason for my wife’s concern is that we used to find white dust settling underneath, and the white cement was visibly crumbling, and our young children would occasionally be near the area. The fireplace is now boarded up, but she’s got it into her head that the material could have contained asbestos. I thought there would be no real way of knowing, but hopefully this information you’ve both given will reassure her.

@^woody^ , when we bought the house, there was a gas cast iron stove with a cast iron flue pipe. No idea how long it had been there or what was there before, but it was decommissioned and physically in bad condition so it can’t have been particularly new…

 

[^woody^]

This is not really the place where asbestos would be used, and from the description seems unlikely too.

Crumbly white cement won't be asbestos, it doesn't do that.