Hi Acts, I worked in exactly the same situation. 20,000 council house to look after. Covering every conceivable repair from a whole new roof to minor everyday issues. The company in question had an ongoing relationship with a Licensed Asbestos contractor but they only had accurate asbestos records for about 10-15% of the houses. What they had decided to do, as they gained more detailed info on each individual house, (estimated to take 20 years) was to extrapolate on house type, construction date and original construction company in an attempt to assess which houses were likely to have Asbestos issue. i.e. House "A". has been worked on before and was know to have asbestos in the xxxx ...whatever, therefore they assumed that every other house of that type, built by the same company at the same time was highly likely to have the same issue. Houses of the same type built by the same company a few years either side may well also have that issue. House of a different type but built by the same company around the same time may have similar issues as well. And so. The slight drawback was that many older houses have been repaired over the years and those repairs may well have involved installing new asbestos. However, this was the best solution to the problem they could come up with while, in tandem, trying to catch up with full surveys on as many houses as possible. They had 200 operatives working on the houses who would obviously report back whenever suspected ACMs were uncovered during works -- this was then fed back in to the system and similar house investigated to try and continually improve the accuracy of the predictions. Hope this helps

Absolute rubbish and another knee jerk reaction when the word asbestos is mentioned. Point 1. If it is just a visual check then there is no need whatsoever for the operatives to wear respirators as nothing is being disturbed. Point 2. If there is a requirement for the person doing the check to wear a respirator then surely the resident and all their family should be issued with respirators too because we all know the dangers of fibre spread. Point 3. If they are that concerened about the possibility of asbestos then they could check the chimney using cctv. Regards

A local housing association has a renovation project running. It has been running for over a year now. An asbestos survey has [just] been contracted for. What a surprise, asbestos was "discovered" in the artex, and in the floor tile adhesive, and in the cupboard and airing cupboard ceilings (airing cupboard was brown asbestos). Given that they have just FINISHED installing new heating systems, which included putting flues through the white asbestos sheet tops (without any employee protection methods), they seem to be having second thoughts about stabilising and sealing the outside structures ceilings (white asbestos cement). I pointed out to them the problems of removing AC soffits, with their employees not having any form of clothing/self cleansing facilities onsite, some time ago.... It seems that education, with respect to asbestos, is sadly lacking in many desk-jockeys today.

Could I ask why people are using dust masks as protection against inhalation of asbestos fibres. This is not suitable. As stated previously if its just a visual check then no asbestos is being disturbed and no ppe is neccessary. If PPE is going to be used at least use some that is going to work. In answer to your electricians question. Yes he can put a screw in the wall without an R&D survey provided he assumes asbestos is present and takes the neccessary precautions as per HSE asbestos essentials task sheets. If you want my opinion get some people who know what they are talking about on the project.

The position of the asbestos manager is that behind every chimney are airborne asbestos fibres!

I agree but sometimes we have to bite our tongues don't we!!!!

The asbestos manager I was discussing carries out asbestos surveys for us (under the LA's direction, conflict of interests all over the shop). I sent out a sub contractor evaluation pack and was expecting to see documented proof of what quality system they use, their risk assessments and plans of work etc (as detailed in the Survey Guide). It came back basically blank. In the section titled 'Health and Safety Competence/Advisor' the company's competent person was the HSE. How do people get these positions!!!!!!