do you have plasterboard on your walls?

MT62

Bit late for me as it was 20 odd years ago I removed my plaster.
I don’t think about it until I hear the word asbestos.
I don’t know how long it takes for that disease to kick in?

Asbestos has never been a regular part of plasterboard. But there were a range of asbestos based products that were used in building. In our case as I mentioned above this board was on the integral garage ceiling for fire prevention.

As SueDonim says this sheeting was also used for outbuildings and in particular corrugated roofing. It was also used for flues and other places where fire or heat needed protecting.

When DD sold her house last year the surveyor reported that the terminal of the flu on the roof of the house was made of asbestos, her buyer got in a panic and reuested a full asbestos survey and no asbestos was found anywhere in the property anywhere, except the flue terminal on the peak of the roof of a 2 storey house.

Bit late for me as it was 20 odd years ago I removed my plaster.
I don’t think about it until I hear the word asbestos.
I don’t know how long it takes for that disease to kick in?

Thank you, J52. You were wise to get a specialist firm in. My son had an asbestos-roofed garage demolished and he got specialists. This was well before my dh’s illness, but he didn’t want to take risks with his family or even the neighbours.

That hadn't occurred to me. I do have an itchy cough but presumed I was allergic to my birds. I know a lot of the dust in the room is from them.

My 200 year old cottage has insulation boards, undoubtedly containing asbestos, installed in 1960s or 70s. I know they are no danger if covered and left alone and I couldn’t possibly afford to have them removed.
It seems very unlikely that plasterboard is causing your cough.

So sorry SueDonim please accept my condolences.

20 years ago we bought a house with Chrysotile asbestos wall boarding. We know about its presence everywhere, before we moved in we had the house gutted by a specialist Asbestos removal company. We couldn’t take the risk as new electrics, central heating and other major works were needed.

Asbestos isn’t a concern unless it is disturbed. Once people start removing it, that’s when fibres begin flying about and can be inhaled. If it needs to be removed you should check whether a specialist firm should be used. My husband has just died from an industrial asbestos-related illness so unfortunately I have gathered some knowledge about it.

I’ve never heard of a cough associated with plasterboard. We’ve moved to a new-build home and I’d say a persistent cough I had has improved, in fact!

Dustiest house we ever had was an 800 year old church conversion. No plasterboard in sight 😁

No not at all. As long as you haven’t asbestos in your walls.
I took plaster off a 200yr old cottage to expose the stone wall.
It was like thick Artex but was like taking metal off in places.
I do worry if that had asbestos in the material😩

Infoman What made you think that the plasterboard in your house might be the cause of your cough? Presumbly you read something somewhere. I have googled the subject and all the information I could find related to building workers involved in sanding plaster surfaces and inhaling the dust

I suppose there may be a slight risk if you have large areas of crumbling plasterboard. Is there any visible sign of plasterboard crumbling because that is the only way that plaster dust could be in the atmosphere.

Unless the plasterboard is crumbling, I would not worry about asbestos. Asbestos is only dangerous if disturbed.

In our last house the integral garage had an asbestos board ceiling. When we moved in we simply put two thick coats of ceiling paint on it and left it. No one had any need to drill holes in it or do anything to disturb it while we lived there. We lived in the house for 30 years and we are both free of any asbestos related disease, as is DD whose bedroom was above the garage.

However, as others say, once plasterboard has had a couple of coats of paint, you should have no worries. The cause of your cough lies elsewhere.

I do not have plasterboard on my wall, but I do have various internal walls of plasterboard.

They cause no problems at all.

However, I believe the plasterboard manufactured and sold in Denmark is slightly different to that sold in Britain.

Here we size plasterboard with a thin solution of wallpaper paste, allow this to dry then paper and paint the walls, finally affixing skirting boards on full-lenght walls, or beadings if needed, where an upper wall meets , say, a kitchen counter.

Are you sure that the walls you suspect of causing your cough are actually plasterboard? I ask because various forms of interior walling material from the 1970s and '80s contain formaldehyde, which can cause the problems you name.

We have plasterboard but I think the dust caused in our home is because we are still living on an housing estate

Plasterboard that is covered in plaster and paint should not be a problem.
However, in the 1950s, 1960s and 70s a type of boarding using an Asbestos mix was used in some new builds. If I were you I’d get the boarding tested for Asbestos.

Our previous property had plaster boards, installed by the previous owner.

We lived there 24 years, no issues that I recall.

I live in a 1930s semi bungalow.
MrP lined all external wall with insulation which necessitates covering with plater boards and then plastered. Then lining paper and then wallpaper or paint.
So to answer your question I doubt very much that dust is going to come through that lot.