Asbestos Garage Removal in Croydon
Most Croydon homes came with a garage or a shed at the bottom of the drive, and a good number of those still wear a corrugated cement roof. We take those sheets down whole and clear them off your CR property in a day.
The garage roof a Croydon drive forgot about
Drive down almost any residential road off the centre of Croydon and you pass them without looking: the single garage beside the house, the lean-to shed at the end of the garden, the lock-up squeezed in behind a converted terrace. Plenty of these went up between the 1950s and the 1980s, and the cheap, light way to roof them back then was corrugated cement sheet. It contained asbestos. Decades on, the same sheets are still up there, faded grey, mossed over, cracking quietly at the edges where the weather has got in.
This is the most common asbestos job we get called to across the CR postcodes, and it is rarely a crisis. The garage is fine until someone wants to re-roof it, knock it down, or clear it out before a sale. That is usually the point a Croydon homeowner looks up properly and wonders what the roof is actually made of. The honest answer is that you cannot tell corrugated cement from a modern fibre-cement lookalike by eye, which is exactly why it gets left alone for so long. The sheet looks dull and ordinary, it has been there as long as anyone can remember, and so it stays.
From New Addington and Fieldway out to the Victorian streets of Addiscombe and Thornton Heath, the pattern repeats. A large town accumulates garages and sheds the way it accumulates everything else, and the cement roof is the part nobody thinks about until they have to. We treat it as the routine job it usually is, not as something to alarm you about. The point of this page is to tell you plainly what the roof is, what taking it off involves, and what can go back on in its place.
How we take the sheets down
Corrugated cement is what is called a lower-risk, non-licensed material when it is in reasonable condition, so the work is straightforward and we can usually do it without the heavier procedures that licensed jobs need. The aim is simple: lift each sheet off whole rather than break it, because breaking a sheet is what releases fibres. We damp the surface down to keep dust off, unbolt the fixings along each ridge, and lift the sheets off the frame one at a time. Nothing gets snapped, dropped or thrown.
A single garage roof is typically eight to twelve sheets, sometimes a few more on a longer lock-up or where a shed has been joined on at the side. Once they are off, each sheet is wrapped and sealed on site, labelled, and taken away to a licensed waste site, with the paperwork that goes with it. Most single garages are done inside three to five hours, start to finish, and a straightforward one is comfortably a single day's work. We do not usually need a skip on the drive for a job this size, so your driveway and the road outside stay clear, which matters on the tighter residential streets around South Norwood and Selhurst where there is nowhere to put one anyway.
Graham, who owns Clearaway, runs these local jobs himself out of Chessington, so the person who quotes the garage is the person who turns up to clear it. There is no chain of subcontractors and no handover. If a roof turns out to be in worse shape than it looked, or there is more than just the garage, he will tell you on the spot rather than after the fact.
What goes back on once the asbestos is gone
Taking the old roof off is only half of what most people want. The garage still needs covering, and there are a few sensible options depending on how the garage is used and what you want to spend. Galvanised steel box-profile sheet is the closest modern equivalent to the old corrugated look, quick to fit and long-lasting, and it is what a lot of Croydon owners settle on. A three-layer torch-on felt finish suits a flat or low-pitch garage roof and gives a clean, weathertight surface. Some owners go for a proper flat roof, or a tiled pitch to match the house where the garage sits right alongside it, and asbestos-free fibre cement sheet is there if you want the original profile back without the asbestos.
Where a garage has a gable end, eaves or a verge clad in old asbestos board, we can box those out at the same time with a modern board so the whole structure is dealt with in one visit. It saves a second trip and a second disturbance, and it means you are not left with one bit of the old material still up there.
We will talk you through what fits your garage rather than pushing one answer. A detached single garage on a New Addington estate and a lock-up behind a converted Thornton Heath terrace are different problems, and the right roof is the one that suits the building in front of us. If you only want the asbestos taken off and intend to handle the new roof yourself or with your own builder, that is fine too, and we will leave the frame clean and ready.
Why Croydon owners get the garage sorted now
An asbestos cement roof in good order, left alone, is not the thing keeping anyone up at night. The trouble starts when it is disturbed: a sale that needs the garage clearing, a re-roof, a knock-down to make room for an extension, or simply a sheet that has finally cracked through after years of frost and sun. Once a sheet is broken, fibres can carry, and what was a tidy half-day job becomes something you want done properly and quickly. The cheapest time to deal with a garage roof is before it forces the issue.
For anyone selling, a surveyor flagging an asbestos garage roof can stall things, and having it gone with paperwork to show for it removes the question before a buyer ever raises it. For the many landlords across Thornton Heath, South Norwood and Selhurst running converted houses room by room, the same logic holds for the garages and outbuildings on those plots: deal with it on your terms, not in a hurry after something goes wrong. A booked-in day on a quiet weekend is a far easier thing than an emergency clear-up after a sheet comes down in a storm.
Clearaway is based in Chessington and has worked across this part of Surrey and South London for more than seven years, with Graham running the local jobs himself. We hold a Spectra asbestos licence, number 142305706, for the higher-risk work when a job turns out to need it, though a standard garage roof rarely does. If you have a garage or shed roof in Croydon you want looked at, call 0800 024 6168 and Graham will tell you what is involved.
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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!"
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
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.
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.