asbestos garage roof

[west ham fan]

Hi any body know the legal root to having our Asbestos roof on our garage removed ?
can we do it our selves? or do we need to get the proffesionals in and charge us an arm and leg. cheers WHF

[McMouse]

My friend has just done his. He had to double bag and seal the pieces and the local tip would accept it.

[sandyRoe]

Do it yourself and you risk getting Mesothilioma. That's a form of cancer. Far better to pay to have it removed by professionals who know what they're doing.

[tigersam258]

couldnt agree more with sandyroe. I recently lost my Dad to that condition that he contracted years ago whilst working at an NHS hospital. The last couple of years for him were not pleasant so the question is: how much do you value your health?

[what..the?]

just heard about someone doing it themselves they double bagged it took in down the tip and the guy said chuck it in that skip to find do one else before them had double bagged!

[west ham fan]

thanks all for your help we will take the safer option my partner already had Cancer twice Bowel and secondary Liver so we don,t want to go there again thankyou WHF

[dotty.]

My son and his boss recently worked on some chicken sheds with asbestos roofs, they would have had to pay a fortune to dispose of a removed roof but the local authority planning allowed them to clad the roof in a modern UPVC sheeting which totally seals the asbestos content and removes the need for any health risk in the future. It also saved the cost of the disposal process that has to be done now,

[DocHH]

Personally I would suspect that the roofing is a cement based product which contains some asbestos, which is unlikely to be the "blue" asbestos, croccidolite. It would surprise me if it were friable, i.e. likely to crumble into a fibrous nature. Asbestos used as lagging in boiler rooms or around pipes normally would be blue asbestos, and that definitely should be removed by a specialist Licensed Contractor. It is the fibres that cause the problems. I would suggest that you can remove it yourself, BUT do not smash into pieces, it is essential to remove it in panels, carefully unscrewing the fixing screws, or removing the nails that attach it to the beams. If you want to take a few more precautions, wear a disposable cover-all and a disposable mask, minimum FFP2, FFP3 would be better. All available from the major DIY outlets.
Afterwards remove the cover-all first, do not pat yourself down to get any dust off the cover-all. Fold both mask and cover-all up and double bag as McMouse suggests. A further precaution would be to really dampen the roof panels before starting to remove them.
Assuming the panels are in good condition, you could use a sealant on them, both sides. Then no need to remove them.

[dzug2]

A local builder told me that it would be 'about £400' for a specialist contractor to remove a roof and dispose of it. Certainly quite a lot but not thousands.

[naomi24]

What about those corrugated asbestos roofs, Eddie? Are they asbetos cement or are they plain asbestos? (Sorry if that sounds silly, but I don't actually know what I'm talking about here). It's just that we have one on one of our outbuildings which I think probably should be removed.

[DocHH]

Naomi24,
I suspect that both EDDIE51 are giving the same advice, if it ain't broke don't fix it. If you can seal it in some way, then you should not have a problem!

[naomi24]

Thanks very much Eddie and DocHH. I appreciate your advice. (Hope you didn't mind me butting in there west ham fan. Thanks).