Asbestos Garage Removal in Epsom
Behind the interwar semis around Stamford Green and Woodcote sits a postwar cement garage roof on almost every plot. We take those sheets down whole, usually with no skip, and most single garages are cleared in a day across Epsom.
The Garage Roof Behind Every Epsom Semi
Drive down almost any road of 1930s semis in Epsom and you will see the same thing repeated plot after plot: a single garage off to the side, often a later addition, capped with a sheet of corrugated cement that has greyed and gone soft at the edges. Stamford Green, Woodcote and the Wells Estate are full of them. Builders fitted those roofs cheaply and quickly, mostly from the 1950s through to the 1980s, and very few have been touched since the day they went on. A garage that was new when the rest of the street was already a generation old has now been weathering for half a century or more.
That is the find we are called to more than any other in the town. The garage walls might be brick, or one of the precast concrete sectional kits that went up in their thousands across Surrey in the postwar years, but it is the roof that holds the asbestos. Corrugated cement sheet was simply the standard cover for a lock-up or a lean-to garage for decades, light enough to handle, cheap to buy and quick to bolt down. Epsom has street after street of exactly that, sitting on driveways behind those interwar homes and quietly ageing.
Left whole and undisturbed, the sheet is stable and does no harm. It is age, weather and disturbance that change the picture, and an Epsom garage roof has had every winter since the 1970s or earlier to take the punishment. Most owners only start thinking about it when the garage is being cleared out, converted or finally pulled down, which is usually the moment it most needs handling with care rather than a crowbar.
Why an Old Cement Roof Becomes a Risk
Asbestos cement is a tough material, but it does not last forever on an exposed roof. Frost works into the surface, moss roots take hold, rainwater sits in the troughs of the corrugations, and over time the cement binder that locks the fibres in place slowly breaks down. After fifty or sixty years on a garage near the Downs, taking the full weather coming off the open ground, the sheet goes brittle, cracks along its length and begins to shed a fine surface dust. A roof in that state is no longer the stable material it was when it was fitted.
That is the point where a settled material turns into a genuine problem. Once the fibres work loose they are far too fine to see, and breathed in they cause asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma, very often decades after the day of exposure. That long delay is exactly why a cracked garage roof gets underestimated. There is no smell, no immediate effect and nothing obvious to warn you off, so the temptation is to drag the sheets off over a weekend and snap them up to fit in the back of the car. That is close to the worst possible way to deal with it, because breaking the sheets is what puts the most fibre into the air.
The other common trigger is renovation. The minute a garage is cleared to be converted into a room, re-roofed or knocked down for a wider drive, the old cover is disturbed. Lifting out the corroded bolts, prising the sheets off the purlins or simply dropping one on a hard surface is enough to release fibres into the air around the property. This is why the safe order never changes in Epsom: confirm what the sheet is by sampling it first, then have it removed properly under controlled conditions, and only then start any building work.
How We Clear an Epsom Garage Roof
A typical single garage in Epsom carries somewhere between eight and twelve corrugated sheets, each one usually around three metres long, fixed down with hook bolts onto the timber or steel purlins beneath. We work from one end to the other, freeing the fixings rather than breaking anything, and lower each sheet to the ground in one piece. Keeping every sheet intact is what keeps the fibres contained, and it is also what keeps the driveway and the surrounding area clean while the work is going on.
The sheets are double-wrapped on site and run straight to a licensed disposal facility, with the paperwork to track them the whole way. In most cases there is no skip involved at all, which keeps the drive and the road outside clear. That counts for a lot on the narrower interwar streets around Stamford Green and the Wells Estate, where kerb space is already tight and a skip would block a neighbour in. A single garage roof is normally cleared in three to four hours, and the large majority of these domestic jobs are finished comfortably inside one working day.
Lower-risk garage sheet of this kind does not require the fourteen-day HSE notice that licensed higher-risk work demands, so once a sample has confirmed exactly what we are dealing with we can usually book the job in quickly. What we will not do is lift a single sheet before that laboratory result is back. Two garage roofs that look identical from the driveway can behave very differently once you are up close, so the sample comes first, the removal follows, and the order is never reversed to save a few days.
Replacing the Roof Once It Is Gone
With the old cover off and the area checked clean, you are left with a bare garage frame and a decision about what goes back on top. The usual choices for an Epsom garage are galvanised steel box-profile, which is light and quick to fit and shrugs off the weather, three-layer torch-on felt for a flat finish, a tiled roof if you want it to sit more in keeping with the house behind it, or asbestos-free fibre cement if you would rather keep the original corrugated look without the original material. Boxing out is also an option in the cases where a sound surface is better covered and protected than torn off and replaced.
We handle the removal and the new roof as a single job, so you are not standing an exposed garage open to the weather between two separate trades, or chasing a second contractor to come back and finish what the first one started. For most Epsom garages the whole thing, the strip and the re-roof together, is done across a day or two depending on which replacement you choose and how the weather falls. One team, one visit, and the garage is back in use rather than sitting half-finished on the drive.
Every clearance closes with a waste consignment note showing the sheets went to a licensed facility, and that is the piece of paper that matters if you ever come to sell, because a buyer or their solicitor will ask how the asbestos was dealt with. We hold Spectra licence number 142305706, we have spent more than seven years working on garage roofs and outbuildings across Epsom and the wider KT17 and KT18 postcodes, and we know how these driveways, lock-ups and sectional garages are put together. To arrange a free look at your garage roof, call us on 0800 024 6168.
Concrete Asbestos Garage Removal, Epsom
Epsom, Surrey · Garage Removal
View this project"Graham and his guys picked up some asbestos roof sheets from my property in Chessington. Would highly recommend this company to anyone. Really good service and very professional. Thank you"
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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.