Fibreglass loft insulation

[KevinS]

Following on from a previous post where the OP was slightly paranoid that he was going to die due to drilling one hole is what he thought was asbestos.
does anyone know, or read a report about what fibreglass loft insulation is doing to us.
is fibreglass inhalation going to be the disease of the future?
i for one hate the stuff.

 

[telectrix]

can just imagine, 40 years from now, specialist companies removing it from millions of houses.

 

[IanHug]

I'd be trying not to breathe it in if I was you. Some of the very old stuff is horrible.

 

[monkeyelectric]

I normally wear a mask when i'm rumaging about in it, another one is chopped paper, its sooooo dusty

 

[ayjay]

loose glassfibre is banned in some countrys, they use it but its encosed in polythene the old black glass fibre is a nightmare, god knows what it does to your lungs

 

[grantr37]

I hate the stuff myself it probably does some kind of damage

 

[grantr37]

the alternative foil stuff is £400 a roll and this glass wool is subsidised to £3 a roll....so guess what will be staying ....in the USA the foil is about £30 a roll, was seriously thinking if I would like to import a load of it for re-doing my mums house and granddads house ....but would probably get taxed at about 3,000% by the jobsworths here on arrival...

 

[Dean182]

MDF will be the one that causes the problem. Sites I've been on of late only allow the chippies to cut it in a sealed and extracted room.

 

[Adam W]

I can see MDF being a problem thanks to the likes of 'Changing Rooms' on the telly, where they make everything out of it and encourage people to use it at home, where they're unlikely to bother with extraction or even a dust mask.
Some chippy at work was saying plywood isn't much good for you either, thanks to the Formaldehyde in the glue - working alongside a chippy is about as good for you as chain-smoking.

 

[dan86]

I can see MDF being a problem thanks to the likes of 'Changing Rooms' on the telly

very 90's! think the last show aired in 2004 iirc...

 

[YoungBart]

We use loads of fiberglass at work and It can't be doing people any good. They used to have some sort of 'spray on' insulation didn't they? was that as bad or was it just too expensive?

 

[paul_h]

I was at an asbestos course in work and its unbelievable the amount of places u find it, the guy was saying it used to be in crayola crayons, carpet underlay and also a thin form of paper was an asbestos sheet for a few examples! The amount of things he told us that contained it was scary. I'm only 26 n been a spark for 9 years n from day one ive been exposed to it. The loose brown papery insulation is really bad for u and almost always contains it. He also mentioned mdf has been linked to various cancers and he recons in a few years it'll be the new asbestos. Supposedly from exposure asbestos related diseases always kill and can develop anytime from 15 to 60 years after contamination!! Ur body does threw a natural process and cells breaking down get rid of the fibres but as with anything else the more there are the higher the chance there is of something nasty developing.

 

[ayjay]

cellotex comes in large sheets and various thicknesses its used in newbuild ect
also b&q do a wool product i used it when i reclad my park home

 

[Adam W]

very 90's! think the last show aired in 2004 iirc...

I was never really 'into' it, partly because they didn't seem to 'improve' people's homes but create novelty themed rooms which you couldn't actually live in. I think there was one programme where they painted some woman's bedroom red with animal print fabric everywhere. They took her into the room and removed the blindfold and she was absolutely mortified - she said it looked like "a -----'s boudoir".
If 'Changing Rooms' isn't on the telly any more I'm sure there is some other similar programme that's taken it's place. Do they use MDF on DIY SOS?

 

[Adam W]

We use loads of fiberglass at work and It can't be doing people any good. They used to have some sort of 'spray on' insulation didn't they? was that as bad or was it just too expensive?

Same here, although we use fibreglass chopped strand mat rather than insulation - I spent a year working in a fibreglass moulding shop where the air is filled with particles of it for you to breathe in along with a cocktail of fumes from resins, gelcoat, styrene etc which apart from making your clothes stink, cause ailments such as lethargy, forgetfulness and cancer. They had made a token attempt at extraction but all the fans seemed to be filled with fibreglass dust so didn't seem to do much.
I think after a while you build up a kind of immunity, but to start with it makes your arms itch like hell.

 

[Stuuk1]

Asbestos causes cancer due to the fact the lungs can't break down the fibres. I can't see how the lungs can break down glass fibres... Therefore I too expect it to be banned in the near future. I always wear a mask, but like many I'm lazy and don't shave an awful lot so the mask isn't a perfect fit and I haven't gone down the route of buying an expensive one.


MDF is banned in America, that's saying something! It's the glue inside which when cut and turned in to a dust/powder is not good for you.

I've torn ceiling and walls down etc before I did any asbestos courses and I now know that it was all asbestos. Asbestos courses are worth their weight n golf and I would certainly recommend anyone in a trade to book themselves up, even if its a 2 hour online course.

 

[Pondy]

Ive been in this trade four years, which means it was normally me in the loft as the apprentice rewiring upstairs lights, and it always made me cough and my arms itch,but what really made me mask up was the guy on the asbestos training course who pointed out,if its irritanting my arms, whats it doing to my delicate lungs....makes you think.......moral is mask up guys, a good quality mask as well, it aint worth it

 

[amlu]

is not about breaking up, more about coughing the stuff out, you can cough up fibreglass, you cant with asbestos. they get stuck in your lungs.

 

[sparks55]

In America they've been removing fibreglass with the same methods as asbestos for over 25 years
But we still go up and look at circuits in old lofts with no masks

 

[Essexboy7]

A few times over the last couple of years if i have seen chippies cutting up MDF not in an enclosed ventilated area i have gone straight to H+S and complained.They hate you for doing it because it stops the job but every time they have taken action about it.That tells me they know its dangerous, otherwise they would just have told me to go away.I think in Australia they have banned MDF as well as in America