More on Asbestos…

We did some more digging.

Asbestos isn’t an issue in the rest of the world it would appear. Especially in construction. It was rightly banned( or was stopped from active use) in the 1980s in many countries. Europe in 1983, America in 1989, and many Asian countries in the 2000s. However, it would appear that only Australia made rampant use of this metal in construction.

From what I hear, the use of asbestos was first introduced in construction soon after the second world war. It was used in all parts of a new home – in the wall, floor, roof, ewes, garage, fence, behind ceramic tiles, and meter boards.

When we first started looking for homes, we were blissfully unaware of this issue. I was aware of how highly carcinogenic asbestos is. We learned about it in our high school textbooks.

Horrific images of carcinoma tumors of the lungs of terminal patients adorned many of these books. Enough was done to kill any condescension on the part of the reader. We know better than to ignore how dangerous asbestos can be.

What was surprising in the last few months was how widely used this metal is in older houses. Most houses are older – mostly built in the 1960s and 1970s. We also came to know that there is a belt of suburbs, known as the asbestos belt, in the west of Parramatta comprising Black Town, Seven Hills, Toongabbie, and possibly a few more.

These houses were apparently built for returning soldiers and poorer Australians. This created a surge of fibro houses, and the new miracle ingredient – asbestos in these western suburbs.

Recently I have come to know that although these houses were more frequent in the west, they were not entirely absent from the Eastern suburbs.

https://www.airsafe.net.au/asbestos-hazardous-material/asbestos/common-locations/

These houses can be inspected by licensed asbestos inspectors. They usually do a visual inspection. Especially during the cooling period or even before you make a deposit to put a house under offer. We recently did so.

We spent 3 sleepless nights trying to find out if this inspection would suffice. Also where we might find such an expert. We found a good expert and he appears to know his stuff.

What we are not sure about is how far a visual inspection would go. Should this step pass and we receive a thumbs up, we will go ahead and buy this property. But what after that?

Should we do a more thorough inspection? Should we take samples and get them tested in labs?

We have two young kids, and we don’t feel confident we can move into a home that we might even mildly suspect is asbestos ridden. These things show their poisonous effects after 35-40 years. This stuff scares us, to be honest.