The TLDR for this is: I f*cked up and be careful – they may be asbestos behind a door frame.

During some major plumbing work, we found the ceiling of our garage and the cupboard our boiler was in were lined with asbestos insulation board (AIB). This is, apparently, the bad stuff so we paid through the nose to get it removed – positive pressure chambers, airlocks, the works so all was good.

Except this weekend, I was hanging a door between the house and garage as the original was also lined with AIB and had to be removed. As I was drilling into the frame to make space for the strike plate of the lock, I drilled through a piece of AIB which some kind soul had used to pad out the door frame – you can see from the back on the frame on the garage side that if I’d have gone 5cm up or down I would have missed it – sod’s law. I reckon I drilled out a piece about 2×1 cm.

Our house is brick and block so I initially thought the grey material I was drilling into was the blocks. As soon as I realised, I damped everything down and cleaned up with damp cloths, threw away the clothes I was wearing and swore a lot. Luckily my wife and children were out but I undoubtedly breathed some of the dust.

Googling seems to suggest that a one off exposure isn’t likely to cause problems but that I should inform my GP in case anything bad happens later down the line. I’ve had a sore throat since the weekend but this could be coincidence or all in my mind. Does anyone have a reassuring words or should I be writing my will?

I’ve had asbestos training from a national asbestos expert – that sort of incident I wouldn’t worry about – we asked similar questions during the training.

Odds are you’ll be fine….

You’ll only know in 40 years time. If you’re not a smoker there’s a good chance you’ll be reet.

The probability is that you’re more likely to be killed in a car crash going to see the GP about the asbestos.

I am sure I had much more exposure than that at school in the 70s and 80s . Asbestos is not to be messed with but equally a one off like you describe is very unlikely to do any harm.

You’ll probably be fine and if not, it’ll take a while to show up. And there’s nothing you can do about the fibres in there. They’re staying put. 🙂

Maybe book that dream holiday? 🙂

It’s a lottery.
A single exposure can theoretically kill you….or extended, repeated exposures can cause no effects.
I know men in their 80’s who used to have “snowball fights” with loose fibrous pipe lagging as apprentices in the steel works while lagging pipes with asbestos. No effects.
I also met a guy who was a steward on the QE2 who died of mesothelioma after hanging his uniform jacket on an asbestos lagged pipe in his cabin.
You’d need to wait decades to find out though.
I don’t think your sore throat’ll kill you this week.

If you tell the doc and you have any life insurance or medical insurance it’s on your records….

I’m always very cautious when it comes to asbestos but concede to the fact that growing up in the 70s & 80s I’ve probably been exposed to it on several occasions without even realising. In my previous house, I had to go around and tell my neighbours mum her kids really shouldn’t smash up the asbestos board at the bottom of the garden with rocks…maybe I did similar as a kid too?

I’ve also wondered in the past when out cycling and I’m on a freshly graveled dusty road composed of crushed up hardcore, how much asbestos was in that hardcore when it was crushed up. We used the stuff so much there’s always going to be fibres present in the air to some degree.

Basically, its done, you may have been exposed but you’ve did what you can to mitigate against the risk so Id move on

Actually, no one’s knows about your personal risk, only statically in which case, you’ll be okay (maybe)

I know people who used to have asbestos snowball fights back in the day and 40 years on, they’re fine. However, family members have suffered due to what was released from their hair or clothing when they got home.

Either way, you can’t undo what has happened.

Wise words. I’ll try to forget it and move on. Do I need to throw away my rather nice drill or would cleaning it be ok?

Don’t panic.

I work with the stuff every day and have done for 13 years. As a surveyor I know what the stuff looks like and can spot it a mile off – and this makes me realise just how many times non-surveying people get exposed in a lifetime and don’t realise it. Every single week I see asbestos situations that are causing people’s exposure. However, when you consider just how much we would have been exposed as children in the 20th Century, these things are often minor. That’s not to say we shouldn’t minimise our exposure as far as possible. However, that one exposure is probably low compared to the amount you breathed in at your school back in the day, the amount that was being realised on poorly controlled demolitions, in housing stock, in the hospitals you visited, on the first jobs you did as a youth or in the offices we worked. I don’t know how old you are?

I often explain it as being a little like smoking. In theory, one cigarette can kill you, as that one cigarette could be the one with the benzene ring than binds to your DNA and causes the genetic change. BUT, it is dose dependant and the higher the exposure, the higher the risk.

The sore throat is not related, other than possibly psychosomatic or an issue caused by general dust release including the blockwork. Asbestos related disease doesn’t work like that. It sounds like you could do with some asbestos awareness training and I would recommend looking into it, even if it’s just a basic online course. It may ease your mind a little.

The only thing I would question is what has happened to the dust/debris you released by the drilling? Was it considerable and is it worth paying for a suitably trained contractor to do a localised clean with a HEPA vac (a vacuum with a filter that contains the fibres, not just breaks them down and spits them back out like a normal vac) to remove any remaining free fibres caused by the drilling?

send it to me and I’ll dispose of it safely – I’ll pay the postage(special offer today only)

Thanks – I thought about getting it professionally cleaned (I had that done when the plumber disturbed some AIB which precipitated the whole thing). However, it was Sunday afternoon when it happened so I thought it better to clean it up myself. I didn’t hoover, just damped eveything down, carefully cleared up the wet dust and wiped every surface with damp cloths. The dust from the drilling seemed fairly localised.

You’ve probably had worse in the food chain and water supply.

If you are concerned, get some tack rags and a mask. Dab the tack rags to clean up rather than wipe.