Hi there,

About a year or two ago, my husband decided to do some DIY around the garage's asbestos roof (corrugated panels). He didn't use a mask or anything at all for most of it despite my big objections, as he said it was totally safe. But now I am quite paranoid and am wondering just how dangerous this actually was. Hopefully, in this case, he was right...

Here is what was done:

1. He cleaned the the top of the roof from the outside with a powerhose. Lots of mossy bits etc fell onto the drive, which I scooped up and binned (never touched the stuff).
2. He replaced the old gutters with new plastic ones. The old ones had a lot of silt from the roof.
3. He replaced the old, rotting wooden beams attached to the roof with new ones. This required drilling, but he used the existing holes that were in the asbestos roof. He used a powertool for this. A lot of it was done from the inside but some of it required being on the roof itself, from the outside. The one time I was involved was when he asked me to hold a piece of wood from the inside while he drilled into it via a hole from the outside, so my face was very, very close to the panels, and a whole lot of visible dust came off while he did this. I tried holding my breath and then washed my face afterwards. (I had requested a mask but he said it was totally fine...I should have just gotten one anyway, but boy did this lead to an argument later!)

After that last event there/argument, he was a bit more careful and started wearing a normal dust mask (which I know isn't quite good enough) and keeping one set of clothes in the garage for this job, which I then washed carefully and separately after it was all over. I don't think the garage was particularly cleaned afterwards to get rid of any asbestos dust, so I don't know how much of the bad stuff might have been around for a while (or even still?). (It does get cleaned regularly, but not necessarily in the 'asbestos-ridding' way...and some might be hard given the number of tools and wee bits and bobs all over.)

The panels are all in pretty good shape -- none of them are broken or anything like that. They are corrugated panels so I assume it is the cement stuff, but I am not totally sure.

The whole job lasted a week or so maybe, and other than working in the garage as normal now, the roof area has never been touched since (or before this).

I keep getting conflicting information. Part of me wants to feel quite safe in that they are pretty stable sheets of what is most likely the 'safest' stuff (if it is indeed cement sheets), and that when they were drilled, it was through the existing holes, but another part of me feels quite worried about him being on it, the drilling shaking up stuff, the power washing, etc., and from my own perspective, getting my face covered...

Any thoughts? And if this is indeed dangerous, is there any way to do any tests now to see what our exposure/damage was, or anything we can do to limit our chances of ever developing any problems?

We are both male, in our mid 20s, and non-smokers.

Thanks!