Asbestos Clearance in Teddington
Teddington grew up along the river where the tide runs out at the Lock, and most of its houses went up before asbestos was banned. Clearance work here means knowing the local stock.
A riverside town built before the ban
Teddington sits at the point where the tidal Thames runs out, the water held back by the Lock that gives the place its edge. The town spread out from there, and the housing tells the story of how it grew. Victorian and Edwardian terraces line the High Street and Broad Street, and they fan out through the streets off Waldegrave Road. Larger period villas stand back towards Bushy Park and the river. Run further out and the terraces give way to 1930s semis on the outer streets. A good many of the bigger houses have since been carved into flats.
Nearly all of this predates 1999, the year asbestos was finally banned in the UK. For most of the twentieth century the material was cheap, fireproof and everywhere on a building site, so it found its way into homes across Teddington, Hampton Wick and the streets around Bushy Park. It is still sitting in a great many of them today, mostly doing no harm while it is left alone. The trouble starts when someone disturbs it without knowing it is there.
Where it hides in Teddington homes
The most common find is the corrugated cement roof on a garage or garden shed, the grey sheeting that was thrown up across the borough from the 1950s onward. Decades of Thames-valley weather have left a lot of it cracked and flaking. Indoors, the textured artex on ceilings and walls is a frequent one, the swirled or stippled finish that was fashionable for years and often holds a small amount of asbestos in the coating.
Then there is asbestos insulating board, usually called AIB. It turns up boxed around boilers and tucked into the conversions where a villa was split into flats. Under old lino and carpet you find vinyl or thermoplastic floor tiles, and beneath those the black bitumen adhesive that bedded them to the floor. In the cellars and the older properties near the river, pipe lagging wrapped around the heating runs is common. On the interwar semis it is often the cement soffits and gutters at the eaves.
None of these can be judged by eye. Two ceilings that look identical can hold completely different materials, which is why nothing is assumed and everything suspect is checked first.
How a clearance runs, and the stricter standard
A clearance starts with a sample, not a sledgehammer. A small piece of the suspect material is taken under controlled conditions and sent to a UKAS-accredited laboratory, and the results come back in a few working days saying what is actually there. Only then does any removal begin. Lower-risk materials, such as much artex and the cement sheeting on a garage, can be taken out under a controlled non-licensed method. The sheets come away whole rather than being broken up, they go straight to a licensed disposal facility, and there is usually no skip left sitting on the drive. Most domestic jobs in Teddington are done inside a single day.
Higher-risk material is held to a stricter standard set by law. AIB and pipe lagging fall into licensed work, and that brings real process with it. Fourteen days of written notice go to the HSE before a hand is laid on anything. The work area is sealed inside a full enclosure so no fibres escape into the rest of the house. When the removal is finished, an independent analyst runs four-stage clearance testing and signs off the air before anyone is allowed back into the room. It is slower and more involved, and on this kind of material there are no shortcuts worth taking.
One local company across the whole job
What ties all of this together is that it is handled by the same outfit from start to finish. Clearaway is based in Chessington, just a short run from Teddington, and the owner Graham runs the local jobs himself rather than passing them to a subcontractor. That means one person who knows the town's housing, from the terraces off Waldegrave Road to the split villas near Bushy Park, and who has seen what tends to be lurking in each.
The clearance work is the broad picture, but it is not the whole offer. If you only need to know what you are dealing with, a single sample or a full property survey can come first, on its own, before any decision about removal. Management surveys suit a home that is staying lived in, and refurbishment surveys go ahead before building work or a purchase. From there it scales all the way up to a full strip-out when a property is being renovated or cleared. Whatever the size, the same care over containment, testing and clean disposal applies.
Clearaway holds Spectra licence 142305706 and has spent more than seven years working across Teddington and the wider Richmond area. To talk through a suspect material or book a clearance, call 0800 024 6168.
Licensed Asbestos Removal, Weybridge
Weybridge, Surrey · Licensed Removal
View this project"I used Clearaway Asbestos recently for an asbestos garage removal in my home. The staff were really friendly and professional and put me at ease the whole time they were working. I would recommend Clearaway Asbestos to anyone who needs asbestos removal services!"
Why Choose Clearaway
Specialist Crew
Asbestos work is all we do, every day, across the South East.
Fully Licensed
Licensed asbestos removal contractor (Licence No. 142305706). Full public liability insurance on every job.
Local & Fast
Surrey-based. Most domestic jobs are booked in and finished within a week.
Our Own Team
We never subcontract. The people who quote your job are the people who do it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Our Removal Process
From first call to final certificate, every job follows the same clear four-step process.
Survey
We inspect the property and confirm the material. Sampling available if required.
Quote
Fixed written price covering removal, disposal and any replacement work.
Removal
Material is removed safely, double-wrapped and taken to a licensed disposal facility.
Certificate
You receive a waste consignment note and disposal certificate confirming legal handling.
Get in Touch
Send a few details about your project and we will come back the same working day with a fixed price. We cover Surrey, London and the South East, including Esher, Cobham, Kingston, Richmond, Epsom, Guildford, Woking and Croydon.