Advice on council asbestos roof work affecting our attached garden shed

[Windflower92]

Hi all, looking for some advice. Our garden roof is attached to the neighbours' roof, both contain asbestos. The neighbour's house is a council house, and they've been round and have assessed that their roof is damaged somehow and needs replacing. Where it joins ours there's the potential for the work to damage our roof, and as they're attached by a cover over both, they'll have to lift that and replace it which will affect ours. They've asked us to remove everything from inside our garden shed and will supply dust sheets. I called the council and asked if our roof could be replaced at the same time if we just put some money towards it as it's not a council house. I haven't heard back from them so I assume the answer is no to that. They said they'll bring something round for us to sign; are there any questions in particular I need to be asking? I have kids and we use the garden loads, I hate the idea of asbestos being in the garden due to them damaging our roof and just leaving it, and would rather it was all just taken off as one. Am I able to say I don't want the work done if I'm not comfortable with how they'll go about it? I just want reassurance that they'll deal with our side properly but not sure how to get that in writing. Any tips from anyone who's dealt with this before would be gratefully received!

If you are so concerned about it, then why haven’t you had the roof replaced already?
Just get your own builder round to do yours as well.

You’ll need a special asbestos removal company to come and remove it. Contact the council again, and say you want it removing on the same day, so either you’ll pay for them to remove it, or you’ll want it removed privately at the same time so that will need coordinating when they’re booking it. Put in writing you’re worried about health and safety with children in the garden, and don’t consent to the works otherwise.

It cost about £1.5k to remove the asbestos roof on our garage

I'm worried about how they'll remove it safely, it's not an issue if they leave it alone!

I'll give them another call, I didn't know if ai would have a leg to stand on with saying I don't give permission. It's all happening next week so probably too soon for me to organise my own thing just yet!

They will need more than dust sheets...

Is your asbestos roof in good condition/intact? In which case the recommendation would be to leave it alone. But you are worried about the work damaging/breaching your roof and making it a risk I guess.

Ask them for their risk assessment and method statement, (you are looking for dampening down, wrapping in heavy duty plastic, full PPE for those doing the work). If it's badly degraded they might even want to erect a tent around the shed (unlikely I think), the qualifications of the people undertaking the work, disposal of the material (eg immediately removed from site, you don't want them just chucking it in a skip on the street).

Loudly and persistently press for having yours done at the same time. Don't let them on your roof/touch your roof.

Thanks, I'll ask them all of this 🙂 I guess ours is in good condition, never really checked but haven't had any concerns. I will try and push for them to do ours, the only issue I guess is if next door is a council house and ours isn't they don't have an obligation to do ours as well?

They have no obligation to do yours, and if they did it’s introducing a liability for them, so why would they.
Questioning them on their HSE is just pointless.

I wouldn't have thought it's pointless given that it could affect my garden/shed if it's not done right!

The risk is all with the people doing the job. The roofing will be carefully removed, then bagged, not kicked in generating dust.
They will remove the dust sheets. If you are concerned supply a soft broom and ask them to brush the walls down before removing the sheet. Leave the door and any windows open for a couple of days before you use the shed again.

HSE stuff isn't pointless. Asbestos fibres are I credibly dangerous. One would hope that they will do the removal properly but it doesn't hurt to make the contractor aware you are knowledgeable and watching.

I don't think the OP is wanting a free be, she's wanting coordination and cooperation as the removal of the neighbours roof affects their roof

I’d contact the council and ask them to provide details of the method of asbestos removal and the measures that will be taken to protect the your roof, from damage or contamination during the works.

Push for all the poster above has said. My father died from cancer caused by asbestos exposure. People think it won’t happen to them but it does. They need to do the whole job properly or not at all.

@macaroon8 ”HSE stuff isn't pointless. Asbestos fibres are I credibly dangerous.”

Where did I say HSE was pointless?

I said questioning the council over their HSE was pointless.
They know all about the risk of asbestos and will only be using approved contractors.

Did he work with asbestos?

I would be asking all the questions as detailed above. We took down a garage that had an asbestos roof. Wrapped the sheets carefully as instructed and took them to the designated council disposal facility. To be honest they seemed to give much less of a fuck about handling it than I was anticipating.
As @FookFookFook says, you don't want to mess with this evil stuff.

Was it cement bonded asbestos, we had a garage roof replaced which was that, I don't think it is as hazardous as the asbestos insulation boards we had taken out of a garden outbuilding.

Depending on how big it is whether OP can persuade the council to just remove it, though her outbuilding will be roofless then and will need protecting with sheeting until it's done, I doubt the council will re roof it as that won't be a health and safety problem.

We paid £1500 about 10 years ago for the garage roof replacement and £2k about 6- 8 years ago to have about 20 square metres of AI boards removed from an outbuilding. The garage roof was done by just a normal builder but the AI boards were done by asbestos workers, we got a certificate with the AI board removal but not garage roof.

So we called the council and the company doing the work and asked for more information on what would be happening etc. in writing. Their response was to send a guy round to drop off a letter, which stated that the "work would begin Tuesday, and they would do their best to make sure our belongings aren't damaged". We then called again to state the information we wanted in writing, and he said he would be round tomorrow with it all in writing. Talking to a friend of ours who works in this area, he said to write our own contract/terms and send it to them, stating the information we would like in writing and that pictures etc. need to be taken and risk assessments sent to us before any work commences. Does this count as a dispute that we would have to declare if we were to sell the house? I don't see this going on forever and it should all be resolved but I just want to check where we stand if we send this letter!

Bumping for the day crowd!

Is the neighbours asbestos roof actually shared or connected to yours?
If so, removing their asbestos roof might disturb yours and the council would need to take steps to ensure that the disturbance did not damage any of your asbestos tiles.
If there is no actual shared roofing, then as long as some fairly basic precautions are taken, it should be ok.
I would take some ' before " pictures in case you need to prove something later. I would also ask the council to confirm the that their contractors are licenced to deal with this type of material.
They should be able to provide you with a written risk assessment, even if it's a generic one, for dealing with this type of removal. This should go some way to reassuring you that precautions are being taken. As a previous poster pointed out, if it's asbestos cement, it's less hazardous than some of the other types of asbestos, but there should still be some precautions to cut down on dust etc.

Thanks, not sure if it's asbestos cement! The roofs both overlap with each other so they will need access to our property and to move our roof about to do their side. We've got all this in the contract and the supervisor is coming over later and we'll ask for all supporting documents to be provided in good time. We got the letter from the contractor yesterday for work starting Tuesday, so will ask for that to be pushed back so everything can be reviewed!

Also I believe it comes under non-licensed work so the workers don't need to be licensed?

Most likely it is asbestos cement as that is usually used on garage and outbuilding roofs. Looks like grey corrugated sheet. Does it look like they can remove it without breaking it. We had a normal builder do ours.

Interested to know what happened here.
If I was you I would press VERY strongly to have yours removed at the same time, at your own expense as you have already suggested. Now that you know the Council/HA contractor, maybe you could negotiate with them directly around the removal of your roof. It may well be easier for them anyway, as they will not have to cut/seal the dividing edge.
Nobody, especially any prospective purchaser of your property, wants this stuff on their property.

They've not responded to us saying we would pay for a new roof on our side, it's been hard enough to get them to give us anything in writing! We've got the method statement and They've signed something saying they'll pay for any damages. We gave them our contract and he took it away for his boss to sign, we'll also email a copy. The roof seems attached on both sides with 9 very big rusty bolts, so interested to know how they plan to remove these! They've said they don't expect any dust which seems a bit optimistic to me if they're going to have to remove these bolts, lift the capping and then reattach our side somehow!

Yes you need a risk assessment. Personally I’d push for them to give it asap, and say you’ll refuse access to do the works without it. We had licensed asbestos workers remove ours, with the proper PPE. Even then there were fragments in our garden. With kids and pets, it’s not worth taking a chance. And they absolutely will be disturbing it. I wouldn’t want to put my things back in without mine being taken care of also