The corrugated grey sheet on a mid century garage is the single most common asbestos job a homeowner ever buys. It is usually asbestos cement, usually non-licensed work, and usually straightforward when it is done properly. The price has very little to do with the asbestos and almost everything to do with how the sheets are reached, how they come down without breaking, and where the waste goes.
Is my garage roof asbestos
Corrugated grey sheeting on a garage built between the 1950s and the 1990s is asbestos cement more often than not, but assuming is not identifying, and the answer changes both who may do the work and what the waste costs. A sample analysed by an accredited laboratory settles it, and it is a small cost against the job.
Getting it down whole
Asbestos cement is brittle and fragile roofs are a major cause of fatal falls, so access is a real line in a real quote: a tower for a single garage, edge protection and crawling boards for anything bigger. Sheets are unscrewed and lowered rather than dropped, because breaking them releases fibres and turns a controlled job into a contaminated site.
Removal and replacement together
A stripped roof is an open building, and the replacement covering is usually a separate trade. Owners who arrange only the removal end up paying for access twice. Ask each quote whether the scaffold or tower is shared with the new roof, who owns the gap between the two, and what the building is covered with in the meantime.
What sets the price
Sheet count and pitch, the access method, whether the frame is sound, disposal by weight or by skip, and the replacement covering if it is included. Two quotes for the same garage usually differ on disposal and on whether making good the fascia and gutter is in or out.
Questions people ask about asbestos garage roof
How much does it cost to remove an asbestos garage roof?
It is priced from the number of sheets, the access method and the disposal route rather than from a flat rate, so ask for those three lines separately and the quotes become comparable.
Can I take asbestos garage sheets to the tip?
Some local authority sites accept small quantities of household asbestos by prior arrangement and many do not. Check with your own council first, and never move it broken or unwrapped.
Does an asbestos garage roof need a licensed contractor?
Work on asbestos cement is normally non-licensed, so a competent contractor with the right waste route can do it. If the survey finds insulating board rather than cement, the job becomes licensable.