Asbestos Cement Slates

Hi all, hoping for some advice. We've just signed contracts on a house, early 1980s bungalow. Had a survey done, some minor issues but nothing major flagged so we went ahead and paid our 10% deposit.
On the advice of the surveyor (for ease of getting quotes off tradesmen) I went to the local county council and looked up the microfilm of the planning application of the house. Upon doing this yesterday I discovered that on the drawing for the planning permission that the tiles are "asbestos cement slate truetone turf brown". I also discovered that this was retention planning permission so that leads me to believe that it is actually what is on the roof. This was sought in December 81 so i'd say the house was built in 1980 or 81.

What i'm wondering is if this is something we need to be worried about? There were a few signs of repair to the roof, but it was lashing on the day of the survey and the attic was bone dry so i don't think there's a problem with leaks at the moment. The surveyor said he reckons there's 5 to 10 years left in the roof before we'd want to do something with it, which given the age of the house we were happy enough to factor in.
We were considering putting in veluxes in the kitchen, is this something we should avoid now?
Is there anywhere else I should be worried about finding asbestos in a house of this age, or was it mostly used in factories? Every wall in the house is a solid one so i'm assuming they plastered them before papering over them. All the ceilings in the house are covered in wallpaper, can i safely assume that they are just plasterboard? Or could there be asbestos in those too?
I'm freaking out about buying a problem, tried googling but it all seems to come up from asbestos removal firms. My dad wasn't worried at all about the roof, said that that was par for the course in everyhouse built at that time or before, and it'd be fine.
What do you think? Any advice appreciated!!

con1982

Asbestos fibres when inhaled are dangerous. An asbestos roof is not dangerous unless it starts breaking up or you drill holes in it. Given the age of the house, you probably have some asbestos in the ceilings too. This is absolutely normally for a house built in 70s / early 80s. There are asbestos containing plasterboard ceilings in the house that i grew up in. Most asbestos is bound by another material(cement, bitumen), and therefore less risky.

Personally, an asbestos roof wouldn't put me off buying a house. You could employ a specialist asbestos surveyor to check the house, if you are particularly worried. Shouldn't cost more than €400 for a report.

Dudda

I've got loads of asbestos surveys done over the last few years. For around 400 euro it's money well spent. Get afew quotes. Asbestos can be found in ceilings and the roof as mentioned above but also in floor coverings, boiler pipes and lagging, old toilets and sinks, etc.

It's safe if left alone but if you can afford it I'd get the roof slates replaced now instead of waiting the 5-10 years as the health and safety in removing them is just going to get worse in time. Probably rightly so and deserved but the world is going health and safety mad.

Calahonda52

So the survey report is silent on the roof.
Bad report.
AFAIK roof cannot be worked on for velux etc.

I would have it stripped, put layer of wood fibre insulation with a laytex outer layer across rafters, breathable felt, counter batten and batten, ventilation strips under first row of slates and close off soffit vents.
Easy peasy, lifetime wooly hat on house.

Safehands

con1982 wrote: »

Asbestos fibres when inhaled are dangerous. An asbestos roof is not dangerous unless it starts breaking up or you drill holes in it. Given the age of the house, you probably have some asbestos in the ceilings too. This is absolutely normally for a house built in 70s / early 80s. There are asbestos containing plasterboard ceilings in the house that i grew up in. Most asbestos is bound by another material(cement, bitumen), and therefore less risky.

Personally, an asbestos roof wouldn't put me off buying a house. You could employ a specialist asbestos surveyor to check the house, if you are particularly worried. Shouldn't cost more than €400 for a report.

The fact that it is dangerous does not stop most builders renovating houses with asbestos slates, from breaking them up and throwing them into skips. It doesn't stop skip companies from taking them either. Nobody monitors it, so it happens regularly in Dublin. I've seen it many times.

Dudda

Safehands wrote: »

The fact that it is dangerous does not stop most builders renovating houses with asbestos slates, from breaking them up and throwing them into skips. It doesn't stop skip companies from taking them either. Nobody monitors it, so it happens regularly in Dublin. I've seen it many times.

HSA monitors it and you can also report it. It is poorly monitored but saying nobody monitors it is incorrect. If a neighbour or someone was to report you then you'd be in a huge mess.

It's the huge cost of removing it correctly along with the fact some inexperienced small builders may not even know or care that its happening.

Safehands

Dudda wrote: »

HSA monitors it and you can also report it. It is poorly monitored but saying nobody monitors it is incorrect. If a neighbour or someone was to report you then you'd be in a huge mess.

It's the huge cost of removing it correctly along with the fact some inexperienced small builders may not even know or care that its happening.

The HSA are supposed to manage it. I reported ilegal removal a couple of times to them. They don't want to know. Told me to get on to local authority. Its only if an incident happens that they will poke their heads above the parapet. Or if an incident is reported on the radio, then they'll stick their chest out and tell us all how great they are and what a great job they do.

hexosan

Safehands wrote: »

The HSA are supposed to manage it. I reported ilegal removal a couple of times to them. They don't want to know. Told me to get on to local authority. Its only if an incident happens that they will poke their heads above the parapet. Or if an incident is reported on the radio, then they'll stick their chest out and tell us all how great they are and what a great job they do.

+1 on the radio the only hope you have to get a government dept to get out from behind their desk is media coverage. Then they can't be quick enough to help.