Asbestos Garage Removal in Chessington, KT9
Drive down almost any road in Chessington and you will spot them: the low concrete garage beside a 1930s semi, its faded corrugated roof sagging a little. Many of those sheets are cement bonded with asbestos, and that is the find we deal with most here in KT9.
The Chessington garage roof, sheet by sheet
The detached and semi-detached garage is part of the furniture in Chessington. As the town spread out along the Leatherhead Road and the A243 through the 1930s and the postwar years, almost every plot got a garage or a shed beside the house, and the cheapest way to roof one was a run of corrugated cement sheets. They went up everywhere from Hook to North Chessington, and a good many are still in place today.
Those grey sheets are the classic asbestos find in a domestic garage. A single-garage roof is made up of around 12 to 16 corrugated sheets, each one roughly 3 metres long, covering a roof area of about 15 square metres. The cement holds the fibres tight while it is sound, so an intact roof is low risk and best left alone. The trouble starts once the sheet starts to break down.
Most of these roofs were fitted somewhere between the 1950s and the 1980s, which means the youngest of them has had forty years of Surrey weather on it. Asbestos in this form was not banned in the UK until 1999, so anything older than that on a garage is worth a proper look rather than a guess from the ground. The same sheets turn up on the sheds and lean-tos behind the houses too, but the lock-up garage is where we see them most. On the older Chessington plots the garage was built to last and rarely got touched again, which is why so many original roofs are still up there decades on, quietly weathering.
Why a weathered garage roof matters
A cement roof does not fail all at once. Frost gets into the surface, moss takes hold in the corrugations, and over the decades the top layer turns chalky and starts to flake. Once that surface is breaking up, loose fibres can wash off in the rain and gather in the gutter or on the drive below. A cracked or holed sheet is a bigger concern than a sound one, and a roof that someone has already started pulling at is worse again.
The other risk is the DIY approach. People reach for an angle grinder or snap the sheets to fit them in the boot of a car, and that is exactly what sends fibres into the air. Broken edges and power tools are the problem, not the material sitting quietly overhead. If a sheet is cracked, the safest thing is to leave it where it is and have it taken down whole.
It is worth saying that a sound roof is not an emergency. Asbestos cement that is painted, intact and not being disturbed can sit there safely for years. The point of getting it looked at is to know what you have, so that when you do come to reroof the garage or sell the house, the right people handle it the right way rather than a contractor finding it halfway through and downing tools.
How we strip and replace a garage roof
Because Chessington is where the company is based, this is local work in the truest sense. The owner Graham quotes and runs these jobs himself, the team knows the housing stock around here street by street, and a survey is booked for the same week rather than weeks down the line. There is no long drive to factor in and no premium for distance.
A single-garage roof is a one-day job. The sheets come down whole, never broken up, lifted off the timber purlins one at a time and double-wrapped before they leave the property. Stripping the sheets off a typical single garage takes around three to four hours, and there is usually no skip involved, so your drive and the road outside stay clear for the neighbours.
With the asbestos gone you have a bare frame and a choice of new roof. Galvanised steel box-profile sheeting in a 0.5mm or 0.7mm gauge is the popular swap, quick to fit and built to outlast the old cement. A three-layer torch-on felt system suits a flatter roof, and asbestos-free fibre cement keeps the original look if you want it. We can also box out the exposed soffits and trims while we are there.
Sampling first, then the work
You cannot tell asbestos cement from a modern fibre cement lookalike just by staring at it, and the two were sold side by side for years. That is why a suspect garage roof starts with a small sample taken under controlled conditions and sent to a UKAS-accredited laboratory. The results come back in a few working days and tell you exactly what you are dealing with before anyone lifts a sheet.
For a standard corrugated garage roof the removal itself is lower-risk, non-licensed work. If the sample turns up something higher-risk, such as asbestos insulating board lining the inside of the garage, the rules tighten: 14 days of notice to the HSE, a full enclosure, and four-stage clearance testing signed off by an independent analyst before the space is handed back. We will tell you straight which category your roof falls into once the lab has reported.
Clearaway is licensed by Spectra under number 142305706 and has spent more than seven years working across Chessington and the streets around KT9, so the garage on your drive is exactly the kind of job we handle week in and week out. To talk it through or book a same-week look at the roof, call 0800 024 6168.
Asbestos Soil Fragments Clearance, Chessington
Chessington, Surrey · Soil Clearance
View this project"Graham and his staff done a great job of removing my concrete and asbestos garage thank you"
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.
Why Choose Clearaway
On Our Home Patch
We work out of Chessington, right on the edge of the KT postcodes, so a same-week survey here is the norm, not the exception.
The Owner On The Job
On local work Graham quotes and runs the job himself. You deal with the person doing the work from first call to final certificate.
Fully Licensed
Licensed asbestos removal contractor (Licence No. 142305706). Full public liability insurance on every job.
Our Own Team
We never subcontract. The people who quote your job are the people who do it.
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.