Managing asbestos roofs across Surrey starts with the law
Across Surrey, the starting point for any leaking asbestos roof is not a coating quote but the law. Regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 places a duty to manage on whoever controls maintenance of non-domestic premises – find it, assess it, record it, manage it. Removal is not automatic; sound asbestos cement can be kept in place, sealed and monitored, and encapsulation is exactly that planned, recorded measure.
Where asbestos cement roofing sits across Surrey
Surrey’s wealth sits on a working commercial base. Asbestos cement roofs are found across the trading estates and business parks of Guildford, Woking and Leatherhead, the units along the M25 commercial corridor, and the managed premises behind the county’s affluent high streets.
Most of these roofs were built for a thirty-year life and have long outrun it, which is why so many are now porous, moss-covered and leaking at the fixings even where the sheets themselves remain sound.
Encapsulation, repair or removal: the honest choice
Done properly, encapsulation seals a sound asbestos cement roof rather than removing it. After a sheet-by-sheet survey, the roof is cleaned under controlled conditions, failed fixings and brittle rooflights are dealt with, and a coating system designed for asbestos cement is applied. It binds the surface, locks the fibres in and restores water-shedding for years to come, at far less cost and disruption than a full strip-out and re-roof.
When we will tell you to remove instead
Some roofs should not be coated, and we will tell you so plainly. Encapsulation is inappropriate where the sheets are badly cracked or holed, where the cement is soft and crumbling after years of water ingress, or where the structure itself has moved. And it applies only to asbestos cement – insulation board, lagging or sprayed coating is licensable material for an HSE-licensed remover. If removal is the honest answer, we put that in writing and step aside.
Survey-led across Surrey
We survey commercial, industrial, managed and agricultural buildings across the county, including Guildford, Woking, Epsom, Camberley and Redhill. The route is the same wherever the building is:
- A condition survey of sheets, fixings, rooflights, gutters and structure
- A photographic record for your asbestos management plan
- A plain written recommendation: encapsulate, repair first, or refer for removal
- A specification and price only where coating is genuinely appropriate
- Work carried out under controlled, documented conditions
If a building in your portfolio dates from the 1960s to the 1980s and the roof has never been assessed, a free asbestos roof encapsulation survey answers the compliance question and the cost question together.
