Asbestos in Construction: How Electricians Can Protect Themselves

A Story Every Electrician Should Hear

Simon Clark started out as an electrical apprentice, went on to become an electrical engineer and later ran his own contracting business. About 35 to 40 years after his apprenticeship, he began to get pains at the bottom of his chest. The pain spread to his back and then around the front of his chest. One day his family found him on his hands and knees, and he was taken to hospital. A paramedic asked him a question he had never thought about:

“Have you worked with asbestos?”

Simon was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung. It’s caused by breathing in asbestos fibres, and in Simon’s case the exposure happened early in his career. When he was an apprentice, nobody warned him about the danger:

“We weren’t given any protective clothing, no masks, nothing at all. No training. We had no knowledge of it.”

He crawled through loft spaces full of pumped-in insulation, worked in service ducts with asbestos-lagged pipes, and cut holes in walls that were often lined with asbestos. That’s normal daily work for an electrician, and it’s the reason this topic matters so much to our trade.

The Scale of the Problem

Asbestos is still the UK’s biggest single cause of work-related deaths. According to the figures in the CITB video:

• Around 5,000 people die from asbestos-related diseases every year
• About 1,700 people die on UK roads in an average year, for comparison
• That works out to roughly 94 deaths a week, or 14 every day

Asbestos-related diseases have a long latency period, which means symptoms usually appear decades after the exposure. By the time someone is diagnosed, nothing can be done to undo the damage. Simon’s surgery took six hours. Surgeons removed his lung and its lining, then took out part of his diaphragm, part of the lining of his heart and a tumour from his oesophagus. He’s now in constant pain, can’t bend down to put his socks on without getting breathless, and needs two hours to walk two miles.

“There is still a gung-ho attitude from workers as well that don’t think it’s going to happen to them. I’m the proof that it can happen to you.”

Where You Will Find Asbestos

The UK banned asbestos completely in 1999, so a good working rule is that any building constructed before the year 2000 could contain asbestos somewhere. Common locations include:

• Corrugated roofing and wall cladding sheets
• Ceiling tiles and ceiling voids
• Floor tiles and lino backing
• Lagging around pipes and boilers
• Loft insulation, especially loose-fill material that was pumped in
• Service ducts and risers
• Textured coatings such as Artex, found in many homes
• Wall linings, partition boards and panels behind older electrical equipment

Electricians are especially exposed because our work takes us into all of these places. We drill, chase, cut and lift ceiling tiles, often in buildings that are being maintained or refurbished. The fibres can’t be seen with the naked eye, so a single exposure can happen without you ever realising.

The Law: Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012

The main legislation is the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 (CAR 2012). It sits alongside the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (HASAWA) and the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015).

The key points for you:

• Duty to manage: the owner or operator of a non-domestic building has the main responsibility for finding asbestos-containing materials (ACMs), recording them in an asbestos register and managing the risk. In the video’s words, “the primary responsibility is that of the owner and operator of the building.”
• Surveys before work: under CDM 2015, the client must give contractors pre-construction information. Before any refurbishment or demolition, that should include a refurbishment and demolition survey.
• Training: employers must make sure anyone liable to disturb asbestos gets suitable information, instruction and training.
• Transfer of risk: once asbestos has been identified, removal can be contracted out to a specialist, licensed if necessary, who has the right training and equipment.

Before you start work in an older building, ask to see the asbestos register or survey. If nobody can show you one, don’t start drilling.

The Three Categories of Asbestos Training

UK asbestos training is split into three levels:

1. Category 1 – Asbestos Awareness: for anyone whose normal everyday work could disturb ACMs. Electricians, plumbers, joiners, decorators and many others fall into this group. It teaches you where asbestos is likely to be and what it looks like. It doesn’t qualify you to remove or handle it.
2. Category 2 – Non-Licensed Work (including notifiable non-licensed work): for people whose work will deliberately disturb ACMs, for example drilling holes in asbestos materials, taking samples for analysis, or removing asbestos floor tiles.
3. Category 3 – Licensable Work: for higher-risk asbestos work, which must be carried out by contractors holding an HSE licence.

Most electricians need Category 1 awareness training as a minimum, and it should be refreshed regularly.

How ACMs Should Be Managed

Finding asbestos doesn’t always mean it has to come out. The video sets out a simple approach:

• ACMs in good condition that aren’t in vulnerable locations should be left in place, protected and managed. Disturbing sound asbestos can create more risk than leaving it alone.
• ACMs in poor condition that can’t be safely and easily repaired, or that sit where work such as demolition or major refurbishment could easily disturb them, should be removed by a competent specialist.

What to Do If You Suspect Asbestos

If you come across something you think might be asbestos, or you’ve already disturbed it:

• Stop work immediately.
• Don’t sweep, vacuum or try to clean up the debris.
• Keep other people out of the area.
• Report it to your supervisor or the site manager straight away.
• Leave the area, and if you have dust on your clothing, follow the decontamination advice you’re given.
• Don’t restart work until the material has been tested and dealt with.

Ordinary dust masks don’t protect against asbestos fibres. Respiratory protective equipment (RPE) has to be correctly specified and face-fit tested. Our guide to PPE for electricians explains why PPE is the last line of defence and not a substitute for proper control measures.

Asbestos in the ECS HS&E Test

Asbestos is a core part of the Special Site Hazards topic in the ECS HS&E test, along with confined spaces, buried services and working near water. Expect questions on:

• Where asbestos is commonly found
• What to do if you discover or disturb suspected asbestos
• Who holds the duty to manage asbestos
• The difference between awareness training and licensed removal
• The long delay between exposure and disease

For more advice on preparing for the test, see our top tips to pass the ECS HS&E test first time.

The Real Reason It Matters

Simon’s mesothelioma is under control for now, but the disease has no cure. He has said his greatest fear is not being able to walk his daughters down the aisle. Learning about asbestos isn’t only about passing a test. It’s about making sure you’re still around for your own family in 30 or 40 years. Check before you drill, ask for the asbestos survey, and stop work when something doesn’t look right.

How Sparky Safety Can Help

The Sparky Safety app is built to help you pass your ECS HS&E test first time and to work more safely on site. You get:

• 300+ ECS HS&E practice questions across all 11 topics, including Special Site Hazards
• Mock tests that recreate real exam conditions
• Study guides that explain the reasoning behind every answer
• Reference guides for quick revision on the go
• 10 BS 7671 calculators for everyday electrical work

Download Sparky Safety today and revise asbestos and the rest of the HS&E topics before your test.