Hi,
I could do with some advice here.
I have a written contract with a heating/plumbing company to replace the central heating. As part of this, they were to remove all the old pipes, tanks in attic etc. As I plan to use the attic space, this was important to me.
I was told the job was finished and went to the house to check. First of all, they left a mess - did not replace carpets etc which has given me a bad impression of them. I looked in the attic and saw some piping and thought they must have forgotten. I told the plumber and he said, "oh really, is there still piping up there?". I confirmed same and he came up to the house to check/finish off outstanding jobs. When we had discussed the other bits and pieces he said that actually, there was asbestos rope around the pipe and he didn't want to touch it. He hadn't looked at it since and I feel he misled me a bit as he had known all along - I would have wanted to be alerted to the problem immediately.
I don't know what to do. I know some of the heating companies I spoke to actually looked in the attic before quoting and were a bit dearer but they didn't mention asbestos. The quote I went with was a little above the average and they didn't look in the attic. I have a signed contract - should they honour it?
Obviously I don't want anyone jeopardising their health over this and I want to do what's right. But I don't want to be walked over either.
I have paid just over 2/3 of the price and had told them that I wanted to keep something back till the job was finished (valuable advice I got on AAM).
I'm now paranoid about asbestos and am worried that some old floor tiles they disturbed when tearing up floors to put pipes in could also be asbestos. They didn't replace the carpet over them. How can I find out?
Would really appreciate some guidance here - I'm feeling stressed out about it all.