My son is away most weekends with his work and finds that when he comes back his house smells dirty/musty,facing the back door as he enters is the stairs down into the basement and he knows that there is asbestos around the pipes down there, so my question is does asbestos have any kind of smell or is it just the stuff he has stored down there.?

Asbestos has no smell.

We live in an old frame house (built in 1860s) .. because of the climate here up north, it is always very dry in the winter, but usually very damp in the summer, especially when (as now,) it is hot, humid and rainy. We always notice a terrible musty, mouldy smell when we come home from a vacation (we came home last week after three weeks in England, for instance.) And yet, when we are here every day, we don't notice the mouldy smell so much. So I think it is partly to do with getting used to the prevalent smell when you are home every day. In the case of our house, the cellar has a dirt floor and is always damp in the summer and that unfortunately affects the whole house.

Thanks for the reply adobe , thats a load of my mind.

Sounds like he has the same problem as you robin, and he only notice's it when he's been away, he was home in th UK last week and it hit him when he walked in the back door again when he got back.

At most hardware-type stores he can buy little containers and the crystals that go in them to absorb damp (and much of the odor). My husband uses these in the shop where he needs to control the humidity. It's called Dry-Z-Air, basically a dehumidifier.
He can also ask in a local shop if there's some solution others use to combat it.

Yes, it is definitely not the asbestos that is causing the smell.

Unfortunately, if he discovers that the smells are caused by leaking pipes or poor insulation in an area of the home that has asbestos in it, then any repairs that he gets done will likely turn out to be very expensive because of the fact that local building codes may require removal of the asbestos which can be a very costly business.

Asbestos!!!

Oh, don't be a baby.

Asbestos won't hurt you unless you start cutting it or breaking it up, and thus releasing the fibres into the air and breathing them in.

I know.

Or unless a big piece falls and hits you on the head.