Is it safe and feasible to take these down with help of friends, or is it really dangerous, other than the obvious of falling through it and dropping it on ones dome.
Thinking back to when my late father put this all up we had no safety issues due to asbestos. its only a very small proportion as far as I know. So can we just remove the sheets and put them in a skip or is this now punishable by a stay in the tower under health and safety rules. I myself am now blind so I'm a bit leery of getting contractors in who often try to cut corners cos the customer cant see what he is doing. I'm certainly not paying huge amounts of dosh to someone to c*ck it up.
Asbestos cement is not that dangerous as long as it is not deteriorating. Should be kept damp when being taken down to avoid the release of dust.
Disposal is a problem.
Some councils will take small amounts double wrapped in polythene but some will not.
It cannot just be put in a skip. I believe you could be prosecuted if you did not ensure it was disposed of properly in a licensed site. I am keeping my fingers crossed that our garage roof lasts a few more years.
Asbestos fibre reinforced panels are not in themselves particularly dangerous. They contain a small amount of a the least hazardous type (Chrysotile aka "white") of asbestos.
Usually councils have a way of disposing of the stuff - they charge if you want them to collect, but its sometimes free if you deliver. It may need to be wrapped in polythene or bagged for transport.
Our council had no problems when I got rid of the roofing sheets from my garage. For my own safety, all that was needed was keeping things damp and not cutting or breaking things. All the council wanted was for me to bag or wrap it, with a double layer of platic. No more than two sheets in the same pack, but no limit on how many packs. They have a designated skip with a top and doors on for you to put it in. That's all there was to it.
Asbestos actually comprises two distinct mineral types. Chrysotile - White asbestos, is actually a form of serpentine. Short fibes, used in asbestos-cement products. Dissolves readily in lung tissue (2-12 months). Treat as with any other inhaled dust (ALL dust is harmful, be it household, diesel particulates, MDF or hardwood cutting). Crocidolite - blue/brown asbestos from amphibole group of minerals with completely different crystal structures and chemical properties. Very long fibres, used in lagging, bulk insulation & fabric. Does not dissolve in lungs, **permanent**, causes mesothelioma. Not used for garage roofs.
The general guide is... #1 - any existing cracked panels should have their edges painted with scrap alkyd paint and any handling should be performed so as to minimise abrasion of fibres. #2 - keep the surface WET, wear disposable overalls, wear FFP3D masks with a rubber seal, wear goggles, wear elasticated sleeve gauntlet gloves, keep all nearby windows closed, do not bring clothing into the house - keep spare disposable overalls if necessary. #3 - do NOT use mechanical tools against the asbestos sheeting, roof J- bolts are cut with a bolt cropper off Ebay or Toolstation etc, other fasteners are ground with an angle grinder on the steel angle side (not the abestos sheet surface), screws and nails are treated ideally by cutting from the wood side if breaking the board would occur. #4 - each board is removed individually, you do not stand on the roof because they DO break, work from below removing each panel carefully. #5 - each panel is usually bagged and taped, placed in a skip designated for asbestos that you either hire OR at a designated tip (designated means not all tips take it and MANY require you to present the first piece for inspection and confirmation of handling etc).
There is a greater health risk from exposure to cement, epoxy and long term dust from MDF and wood such as Iroko is more hazardous than Chrysotile.
Remember, all dust is dangerous - just because asbestos has "gone away" does NOT mean that inhaling modern particulate matter is any less dangerous because it is accumulative.
Your house insurer may pay for removal or for tests to confirm what is their themselves, but they will want to vet who does it - if not ensure you have legal cover because "licensed contractors" have a habit of carrying "woodworm dust" with them to turn a cheap job into a =A320,000 fake bill.
Key thing is please do not stand on a chrysotile roof, even if the steel or wood frame appears sound because the panels can become porous over years and freeze-thaw cycles can render them surprisingly weak. You go through without warning and it has caused a fair few casualties over the years re factories, not just domestic. Some thieves went through a local shed roof doing a "garden runner" from the police, his upper arm became impaled on metal work as he fell.
Wet is down first and bag it. Break it as little as possible. After the job is over vacuum up round the site to get up any dust. Use a cleaner with disposable paper bags. Wear face masks and diposable overslls. Have a look in your local recycle site(s). Ours has a huge covered skip for asbestos cement. It has to be bagged. Yours may well be the same.
Very interesting, but it kind of makes one wonder what the actual method used to make it safe is after you give it to them.asbestos sheeting, presumably needs to be broken down into its component parts in some way. do they use acid or what?
In the case of one brand-name chemwaste cleanup firm, they sent it for incineration. A remarkably clueless move, even for that company.
Usually asbestos cement goes for landfill. In the case of cement boards this is "above board" and seen as acceptable.
There's also a huge problem with fly-tipping(sic) of asbestos where it's illegally disposed of into landfills that it shouldn't be going into, by various backhander deals. Our garden in Northern Ireland was filled with white asbestos pipe lagging, after a demolition contract and some well-dodgy deals over a disposal site (the land owner thought he'd made a tidy profit by offering his land as a disposal site for subsoil - what he actually received in the trucks was demolition waste).
I've got a couple of thousand square feet of asbestos cement roof. Some of it I've taken down for demolition, many of the better panels I've then re-installed for repair work on the others. I plan to keep it for its useful life, as the stuff is an excellent shed roof if looked after.
Your biggest hazard by far is the risk of falling off it or through it. Being so obviously dangerous to walk on, even with crawling boards, people start taking risks and leaning over it too far. You mustn't be afraid of it - rig up crawling boards that will allow you to work on any part you need access to safely, even if you have to make a board with a large padded ridge hook.
Most of the work in taking it down is in cutting the heads off J bolts. This can be done from the outside, but it's often easier to cut the tails off the J bolts from the inside (easy, with a pair of bolt cutters) rather than trying to deal with rusted nuts from above (bolt cutters, angle grinder, rarely a spanner).
You need several people, because you need to lower sheets down safely, without dropping them either inside or outside the building. It's also good to avoid scraping them over the edges of walls. I'd use a couple of planks as runners, rather than trying to lift them down.
By far the easiest way (and worth paying hire charges) is a small mobile scaff tower inside the shed. It's easy access to take off the bolts and it's a good place to support the panels from beneath when you're lifting them down.
You also need a pickup or large van to take them to the council dump, as you don't want to be breaking sheets up on-site to make them small enough to fit into a small vehicle. It might be worth using a council pick-up service.
Check with your council first. They vary a lot. Essex CC domestic waste sites do not accept any form of asbestos. They will collect 40Kg per council tax year free. Anything else has to be paid for.
Do you live on a Council estate (or ex-council estate)?
Our old house was a private house on an estate that still had a few authority-owned houses on it. When I noticed the council contractors replacing the asbestos shed roofs on those, I phoned the council and asked if they would do ours too, and they were happy to.
This wasn't a backhander to the contractors, the cheque was payable to the local council.
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