Asbestos in popcorn ceiling?

I have a 1978 home and I hit the ceiling the other day(lightly). Some dust flew off and I am wondering if I should be worried about asbestos?
Thanks

 

Welcome to the forums.

Short answer is no.

Long answer is this is not likely an asbestos containing material and even if it was this is not the exposure level it takes to have a problem.

 

Thanks for the quick response. I guess I am now more paranoid than before. When I was small, the school ceilings were popcorn and this guy bounced a ball that hit the ceiling and stuff came flying down. Nobody cared back then.. Ignorance is bliss I guess lol...

 

If I remember correctly, 78 is about the time that asbestos was banned from texture and even though the existing stock was allowed to be used up, the odds are still in your favor. Not all popcorn texture had asbestos! It was more in the commercial work than in residential although some texture companies did both residential and commercial work and would use the same texture for both.

It is highly unlikely that anyone will suffer harm from breathing asbestos fibers/dust if it's just minor exposure - even a few times. It's more of an occupational disease. I've sprayed a fair amount of asbestos texture and have no lung health issues. Way back when we were often instructed by the fire marshal to spray asbestos texture with a minimum thickness on school house ceilings. At the time it was thought of as a good thing

 

The high school from which I was graduated was built 50 years ago. My dad plastered that building. It had hundreds of yards of acoustical plaster. It did contain asbestos. Some years back the district spent many times more to abate the asbestos than it cost to plaster the building. I remember that boys could jump up and touch the 9' ceilings and leave claw marks. I did not do that because those were my dad's ceilings. I doubt if anyone got asbestos related illness from 4 years' exposure to the little bit of asbestos released in dragging the ceilings. I suppose the risk to teachers who spent a long career there was greater. I never heard about a problem.

Don't mess with the ceilings and you should live until you die.