Managing asbestos roofs across Kent starts with the law
Across Kent, 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 Kent
Kent runs from Thames-side industry to open farmland. Asbestos cement roofs are common on the Medway towns’ industrial estates, the units at Dartford and Gravesend, the logistics parks off the M20 and M2, and the barns and grain stores of the Garden of England.
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
Encapsulation is not painting over a problem. The roof is surveyed sheet by sheet, cleaned under controlled conditions, repaired where fixings and rooflights have failed, and sealed with a coating system made for asbestos cement. The cured surface binds the sheet, locks fibres in, restores water-shedding and adds years of service life, usually at a fraction of the cost of stripping, hazardous-waste disposal and full replacement, and without emptying the building.
When we will tell you to remove instead
There are roofs we will not coat, and it is better you hear that before a survey than after a failure. Encapsulation is wrong where sheets are extensively cracked or holed, where the cement has gone soft and friable through decades of saturation, or where storm damage and structural movement have broken the roof’s integrity. It is also strictly limited to asbestos cement: insulation board, lagging and sprayed coatings are licensable and must be removed by an HSE-licensed contractor. Where removal is right for your building, we say so in writing.
Survey-led across Kent
We survey commercial, industrial, managed and agricultural buildings across the county, including Maidstone, Canterbury, Medway, Dartford and Ashford. 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.
