Asbestos removal

This page is a very brief introduction to asbestos removal. I will give you a quick rundown on the procedures that we had to go through on a typical FAC removal job.

I am a retired builder with a large amount of practical experience fixing fibrous asbestos cement products and then later removing them.

In 1995 I was issued an removal licence (43133) by the Northern Territory Work Health Authority, and did many removal jobs, complying with Australian Work Health (OH&S) Regulations and the NOHSC National Code Of Practice For The Safe Removal Of Asbestos.

asbestos removal - FAC

I am not offering this as a how to article, it is just here for information only. To help homeowners to judge what is involved, to maybe see if their own contractors are doing the right thing. If you are a young tradie you may be interested in getting a license yourself. As in everthing on this site I put it forward as information. It is only general background information, and it is no substitute for getting the facts from your local authorities.

• Inform the authorities at least a week before you intend commencing asbestos removal work, giving the location, the extent of the work and the method of removal.
• The whole thrust of the regulations is to SAFELY remove ALL the material.
• We used to go to a lot of pains cleaning up as much as we could around the work area, before starting to lay protective plastic.
• We would fix "DANGER - ASBESTOS REMOVAL" signs and barrier warning tape around the block.
• Inform neighbours what was going on.
• We always hired a skip or dumpster. Never used our own vehicle, even for small jobs.
• We lined the skip with two layers of 200um thick black poly plastic sheeting with plenty overhanging the sides to use for covering the top up.
• The whole floor of the work area and access to other areas not being worked in was sheeted with two layers of plastic. Each night the top layer was carefully rolled up with whatever dust it contained and put in the skip. A new layer was put down the following morning.
• Before going into the asbestos removal work area we put on disposable overalls, dust masks, hard hats, safety glasses, gloves and rubber boots.
• If the job was a public building or school we would have to set up an air monitor, to measure the amount of asbestos dust in the air, this would be a check on us that we were following the right procedures.
• The only tools we used were hand tools, pry bars, hammers etc.
• The whole idea when removing the material was to do it in as large a piece as possible and to minimise the creation of dust. To do this we punched the nails through the sheets with nail punches or cut around the nails with small wadding punches.
• The pieces were carried out carefully and placed, not thrown into the skip.
• All the time we were doing this one guy had a hose and was spraying us, the work, the skip, and the area in general with a fine mist of water.
• Smaller pieces were were swept up and placed in clear plastic bags with asbestos warning signs on them. These were placed in the skip.
• There was no carting the small stuff to the skip in wheelbarrows and shoveling it in. It was all bagged inside and placed into the skip.
• We sprayed the nail heads that were left behind in the timber, to seal the fibres under them with watered down PVA glue in a hand spray bottle.
• At the end of each day we rolled up the top layer of floor plastic and put it into the skip. We left our boots inside the work area, we dumped masks and overalls in the skip and covered the skip in plastic and sealed it. We put another layer down at the start of the next days work. Using fresh suits etc.
• A day before the asbestos removal job was finished I would ring up the dump (waste disposal facility) and tell them that we had a load of asbestos material.
• The dump manager would give me a time for delivery and he would have a hole dug out ready for burying the stuff.
• The skip was sealed and asbestos warning tape put around it. I would give the driver of the skip truck a letter to the effect that the load contained asbestos material, which he had to give to the dump manager.

I had a license that is typical for builders, that allowed me to work with FAC only. Not the far more dangerous types of asbestos, blue asbestos, found in pipe lagging etc.

I have seen guys working with that stuff removing the lagging from pipes at a power station. They wore waders and worked in what was similar to an above ground swimming pool. The lagging was separated from the pipes and bagged completely under water.