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fibrous roof tiles/asbestos


Porth
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I wonder please if someone can help.  Whilst we bought the house in 2001 it was in essence our second home that is until May of this year and when we both retired.  Whilst the main part of the house is essentially an old farmhouse it had an extension which is of more recent times.  Basically the house did not need much doing but we have tiled the side of the house (if faces west and we are about 1000 feet up) with ardoise. This week the rear of the house was also retiled and this afternoon the roofer mentioned that the roof on the newer extension was dangerous in that it was basically fibrous roof tiles with asbestos but it would be ok until next year.

Nothing was mentioned to us during the translation at the Notaires,

I used to deal with medical negligence stuff back in the UK and just the usage of the word asbestos fills me with horror.

Please can someone add something that will allay my fears?

Kind regards

 

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This may help maybe not

In the UK asbestos in slates has not been used for nearly 30 years They still use slates that we called asbestos slates even though they were only fiber cement .

If as in the uk the slates are older than 30 years old the older they are the more they have in them (asbestos that is )

5 years ago we under took a lot of work for the local authorities re-roofing schools because the slates had    asbestos in them well before we could carry out the work we had to send a  sample to be tested , It came back with a trace of the substance in . It was so minimal that we did not have to get special permits to get it dumped and could just put it in the normal skips .

HSE were happy for us to just wet the slates down as we took them of to stop any dust and that was the only precaution we had to take . And the slates had been on for 40 odd years .

Sadly  asbestos was used for years in so many things some forms of it were very bad an others not so bag .

If your slates are not falling off leave well alone If they do start to fall off do the best thing you can and get as many second opinions as you can and you may find that its not such a problem .

As for France I would think it’s the same as the uk ,We live in 24 and you don’t see slates that often.

As I said this may help, may not        If asbestos was present it should have been picked up when you brought the house

    

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thanks that has really been helpful.  The roof is in very good condition sound with no loose slates and that is both back and front.

As you say it is best perhaps to leave it well alone until we have to do so.  However numerous artisans visit the house from time to time and I will ask their opinion too.

 

thanks again

 

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 "However numerous artisans visit the house from time to time and I will ask their opinion too"

I would be careful how you act on advice from "artisans" for a number of reasons.  Without analysis they will have no idea whether your slates contain asbestos or not, they may be looking for work and overstate the "dangers" or have the casual French attitude to asbestos that still allows asbestos lino and roofing materials to be dumped at the decheteries.  If you completed your purchase after september 2003 you should have had an asbestos and lead survey, that should have told you if there was asbestos present at your property, if it did not fine.  If you have any real concerns about asbestos, go back to your Notaire and ask for checks to be made on your survey.  The problem is that a lot of modern materials look exactly like their asbestos bearing predecessors and without analysis you really cannot tell,  except to say if it was installed before 1975 it probably does contain asbestos.  If you do a search you will find quite a bit about asbestos on here, but the overriding advice is,  if it is in good condition, leave it alone, it poses no threat to you whatsoever unless you start drilling or sanding it. 

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If your purchase predated the requirements for an asbestos  survey you can get one carried out now if you are really concerned. On the other hand if they appear to be in good condition, and you are not intending to start drilling or cutting them, just leave them well alone, and worry about them if you ever need to work on them. Even if they are 100% asbestos, and they probably only contain a small percentage anyway, left alone they will do none any harm.

 

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