Where can you find asbestos?
Water Tank:
Is usually made of asbestos cement and is often found in older properties (pre 1980).Pipe Lagging:
Asbestos insulation on pipes. Used to keep heat in or cold out. Often painted over or protected by outer coating so not obviously asbestos.Property Insulation:
Loose asbestos can be found as insulation in wall and floor cavities and in lofts.Textured coating (eg artex):
Can be found throughout property on ceilings and sometimes walls.Soffit Board (roof overhang):
Soffit board sits behind fascia at eaves level. Board can be made from asbestos cement or asbestos insulating board.Toilet cistern:
Toilet cisterns can contain asbestos-reinforced resin composite materials.Wall Panelling:
Asbestos can be found as external wall cladding and as internal wall panelling both particularly around windows.Fuse box:
Often found in hall or under stairs. Each fuse wire has an individual asbestos flash guard. Panel behind fuse box can be asbestos.Heater Cupboard:
Heater cupboard around domestic boiler often contains asbestos insulating board.Floor tiles:
Vinyl and thermoplastic floor tiles can contain asbestos. The tile backing may also contain asbestos paper.Rainwater items:
Roof gutters and down pipes can often be made of asbestos cement.
Asbestos cement
Where do you find this?
You can find asbestos cement in many places inside and outside buildings such as:
Asbestos cement roofs
These are mainly made up of large sheets of corrugated asbestos cement; they are often found on industrial or farmyard buildings, but also can be found as roofs on garages and sheds. They are usually covered in mosses as they've been there for many years.
Asbestos wall cladding
Shape and structure similar to roof sheeting, and is often found on walls/as walls of buildings with asbestos cement roofs.
Asbestos downpipes and gutters
Sometimes attached at the end of cement roofs in warehouse type buildings.
Asbestos cement flues
This may be found in boiler systems (including domestic) air conditioning and ventilation systems.
Asbestos cement warehouse in bad condition
Asbestos cement flue from ventilation unit
Textured coatings
Where do you find these?
Textured coatings were used to produce decorative finishes on ceilings and walls. In the past, they have had various trade names such as 'Artex'.
What do these look like?
This is dependent on the particular decorative finish required i.e. peaks or patterns. They are hard and were originally white in colour but have often been painted over.
Textured Coatings
Floor tiles, textiles and composites
Where do you find these?
Sometimes you may find asbestos floor tiles hidden under carpets.
Textiles can be found in fuse boxes behind the actual fuse. Old fire blankets and heat resistant gloves can also be made out of asbestos textiles.
Asbestos composites can be toilet cisterns and seats, window sills, and bath panels.
Asbestos paper was used for lining under tiles and inside metal cladding.
What do these look like?
These asbestos containing materials are not very distinctive from what is used now. To make sure we recommend you ask the owners about how long they?ve had certain things or look for a trade name. You should be able to look up this trade name on the Internet to find out more about it.
Asbestos Containing Vinyl Floor Tiles
Sprayed coatings
Where do you find this?
Insulation on the underside of roofs and sometimes sides of buildings and warehouses. Also used as fire protection on steel and reinforced concrete beams/columns and on underside of floors.
It was very easy to overspray or get a 'splash back' from the equipment used to apply this so there is likely to be debris around the sprayed area.
What does this look like?
Usually white or grey in colour with a rough surface, although they may have been painted.
Sprayed Coating used as filler
Asbestos Insulating Board (AIB)
Where do you find this?
Asbestos Insulating Board was commonly used as fireproofing material but it had many other uses such as:
- Partition walls
- Fireproofing panels in fire doors
- Lift shaft linings
- Ceiling tiles
- Soffits
- Panels below windows
What does it look like?
Normal building items such as wall panels boards, ceiling tiles and plasterboard. It is difficult to tell the difference between asbestos insulating board items and non-asbestos materials.
Lagging and insulation
Where do you find this?
Mostly found in or on heating systems such as round boilers or calorifiers and around pipework.
What does this look like?
This type of asbestos has many different appearances but is mostly a fibrous material which flakes and powders easily. When applied to pipes it is often covered in a protective coating (or painted) which can be any colour, and may make it more difficult to identify.
Loose fill asbestos
Where do you find this?
This was used to insulate industrial and domestic premises so can be found in between cavity walls, under floorboards and in loft spaces.
What does this look like?
This is a loose, fluffy insulation material (similar to candyfloss), which may be blue-grey or whitish in colour.
For more information about asbestos and the locations please visit the HSE website on the link below, which has a vast resource pool of asbestos information. http://www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/index.htm
Top