Asbestos Removal near you

The definition sits in regulation 2(1) of the 2012 Regulations. Licensable work with asbestos is work where exposure of employees is not sporadic and of low intensity; or where the risk assessment cannot clearly demonstrate that the control limit will not be exceeded; or work on asbestos coating; or work on asbestos insulating board or asbestos insulation where the risk assessment demonstrates the work is not sporadic and of low intensity, or cannot clearly demonstrate the control limit will not be exceeded, or demonstrates the work is not short duration work. Anything meeting one of those tests must be done by a contractor holding a licence from HSE.

Below that sits notifiable non-licensed work, which does not need a licence but does carry three extra duties beyond ordinary non-licensed work: the work must be notified to the relevant enforcing authority before it starts, workers must be under medical surveillance with examinations including a chest assessment repeated at least every three years, and a register must be kept of the nature and duration of the work and each worker's estimated exposure, retained for forty years. HSE gives examples such as work on asbestos cement products where the material will be substantially damaged, and repairs to damaged asbestos insulation on a short length of pipe.

Everything else is non-licensed work, and the most persistent misunderstanding in Britain is that non-licensed means unregulated. It does not. To be non-licensed, exposure has to be sporadic and of low intensity — HSE puts figures on that, saying the concentration of asbestos in air should not exceed 0.6 fibres per cubic centimetre measured over ten minutes — and the work must still not exceed the control limit, with a risk assessment, appropriate controls and properly trained operatives in every case.

Regulation 8(1) of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 is short: an employer must hold a licence granted under paragraph (2) before undertaking any licensable work with asbestos. Licences are issued by HSE's Asbestos Licensing Unit, are applied for at least 28 days before the licence is to start, may run for any period up to a maximum of three years, and may be granted subject to whatever conditions HSE considers appropriate. Carrying out licensable work without a licence is an offence.

Regulation 9 adds the notification. For licensable work, the employer must notify the appropriate enforcing authority at least 14 days before undertaking the work, or such shorter period as that authority may agree. For notifiable non-licensed work the requirement is notification before work is commenced, with no minimum period specified, submitted through an online form. That fourteen-day gap is the single most useful fact a homeowner can hold, because it tells you a genuine licensed job cannot start next Tuesday because someone had a cancellation.

There is a check you can make. HSE's Asbestos Licensing Unit publishes information about current licence holders, so a contractor's claim to be licensed is verifiable rather than something to take on trust from a logo on a van. Ask for the licence details and look them up before anyone opens a ceiling.

The Regulations bite on work activities and on employers, so a homeowner doing something in their own house is not in the same legal position as a contractor. That is a narrow technical point and a bad basis for a decision, and HSE's own advice to homeowners is explicit: do not try to repair or remove any asbestos materials yourself if you have not had any training for non-licensed asbestos work, and seek advice from an environmental health officer at your local authority or council.

HSE is equally clear that certain materials should only be removed by a contractor licensed by HSE — sprayed asbestos coatings, asbestos lagging and insulation, and asbestos insulating board. No amount of care makes a homeowner an appropriate person to take down an AIB ceiling lining or strip lagging from a pipe. Those are the materials that release the most fibre for the least disturbance, which is precisely why they sit inside the licensing regime.

There is also a strong argument for doing nothing. HSE's position is that where you are sure or strongly suspect that your home contains asbestos materials, it is often best to leave them where they are, especially if they are in good condition and unlikely to be damaged. An undisturbed asbestos cement garage roof is not an emergency; a homeowner attacking it with an angle grinder is. There is no legal requirement on an owner-occupier to remove asbestos that is intact and undamaged.

The control limit is defined in regulation 2(1) as a concentration of asbestos in the atmosphere of 0.1 fibres per cubic centimetre of air averaged over a continuous period of four hours, measured by the 1997 World Health Organization recommended method or an equivalent approved by HSE. It is a limit that must not be exceeded rather than a safe level, and it is the number that the classification of the work turns on.

Surveys come in two kinds and HSE's guidance for them is HSG264, Asbestos: the survey guide. A management survey is intended to let a dutyholder produce an asbestos register and management plan and manage the materials during normal occupation. A refurbishment or demolition survey is the one that matters before work: there is a legal requirement for asbestos-containing materials to be removed as far as reasonably practicable before major refurbishment or demolition, and this survey must locate and identify materials hidden within the building fabric before structural work begins. It is destructive, it may disturb asbestos, and the area has to be vacated while it is done.

The duty to manage under the Regulations applies to non-domestic premises, which is why a survey is usually commissioned by a contractor or a client rather than required of a homeowner. That does not help you if a builder starts work without one. Agreeing in the contract who arranges the survey, who pays for it and who arranges licensed disposal is a five-minute conversation that prevents a very expensive argument.

Classification drives the price more than quantity does. What moves a quotation is which of the three categories the work falls into, the material and its condition, whether an enclosure and air testing are required, how accessible the material is and whether it is fixed to or entangled with structure, how much of the property has to be handed over to the contractor and for how long, the volume of hazardous waste and the disposal route, and whether a survey and analysis are included or priced separately. Two garage roofs of the same area can differ substantially if one is intact and one has been walked on.

LokalMatch connects you to contractors and stops there. Say what the material appears to be, where it is, what condition it is in and roughly when the building was built or last refurbished, add your postcode, and asbestos contractors covering your area respond. Homeowners pay nothing; pros pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not survey, remove or dispose of anything, does not set prices and does not vet, rank or recommend anyone, so verifying a licence with HSE and asking which category the work falls into stays with you.