material used to render between beams.

[laserman3000]

Hello all. Myself and my partner have just had an offer accepted on our dream cottage. It's a grade two listed property built in the 1800s. We have just had the structural survey report back which states that the white painted plaster type material between the beams of the ceiling in the downstairs rooms could be artex. This doesn't make sense to me. Could any one advise on the likelihood that this material will be asbestos containing? Also would removing it be worth doing considering it is tangled up in the beams.

Thank you for you thoughts

 

[tobydog]

Hi Laserman and welcome to the forum. As usual, newbies tend to be vetted before their first posts appear so you only showed up today.

Someone who knows more about artex will be along shortly. All I would say it that, with time, you will probably find many things about your house that don't make sense. Where would the fun be without them :wink: . We have a listed 1640's thatched place and we've given up counting how many times we've :roll: at things we've found.

We actually have artex on the wall of a bedroom but unfortunately it's been smeared all over the original wattle and daub. As such, and for the worries you mention, we will probably be skimming over it at some point with something slightly more authentic looking!. Also, taking it off will cause too much damage.

 

[Flyfisher]

Sounds to me as if the surveyor is playing safe. Of course the material could be artex and in an old house a lot of the paint could contain lead. Ours certainly does - I know because I've tested for it. Such things go with the territory but are not particularly dangerous unless they are handled incorrectly. In most cases this means not doing anything that will create airborne dust.

Asbestos-containing Artex was phased out in the mid-80s - more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artex

There are also lots of companies out there that will test materials for asbestos.

 

[Penners]

As I understand it, asbestos was removed from Artex some time in the 1980s. If you know that the Artex on your ceilings was applied later than that, then it's probably free of asbestos.

However, if "probably" isn't good enough for you (understandably), you can have the material tested to see whether it contains asbestos. There are DIY services that allow you to take the sample and send it to them, but I have no idea how good they are. Here's one I found:

http://test4asbestos.com/?gclid=CIGt1LWxnrwCFa-WtAod0m0AyQ

The other approach would be to skim plaster over the top of the asbestos. This can be done provided the "relief" pattern on the asbestos is not too deep. If it's a deep stipple effect then you'd have to knock the peaks off it before plastering, which brings you back to square one as regards the risk of asbestos exposure.

I am not an expert in this subject.