Asbestos Garage Removal in Sutton
Half the garages in Sutton went up after the house did, bolted together from corrugated cement sheets in the SM1, SM2 and SM3 streets. We take those roofs down whole and clear the drive, usually in a day.
The garages Sutton added after the war
Drive through Cheam, Carshalton or Worcester Park and the pattern repeats. A 1930s semi, then a garage tacked on beside it or run down the side return, often a good few years younger than the house itself. Sutton was a small village until the railway came in 1847, and it filled in hard between the wars, so a great many of these homes got their off-street parking as an afterthought. People wanted somewhere to keep the new car, and the cheapest way to roof a garage back then was corrugated cement sheet. That is what most of them got.
Those sheets were fitted roughly between the 1950s and the 1980s, and a fair number of them contain asbestos. You see the same thing up on the higher ground towards Belmont and Banstead, and on the postwar estates where space was tight and a single-skin garage made sense. The larger houses near the centre and around Carshalton's village core and ponds tend to have older outbuildings, but even there a later cement garage roof is common. The material looks solid enough from the street. The problem is what five decades of Surrey weather have quietly done to it.
A lot of these garages also picked up an asbestos shed alongside them in the same period, roofed with the same corrugated sheet, so it is worth checking both while you are at it. Cheam and Worcester Park in particular have whole rows where the back garden holds a matching cement-roofed shed or lean-to bought from the same supplier. If we are already on site for the garage, dealing with the shed roof at the same time saves a second visit and a second set-up.
Why an old garage roof turns risky
Cement sheet does not rot the way timber does, but it does break down. Years of frost, rain and sun leave the surface soft and flaky, and once that skin goes the fibres underneath are no longer locked in tight. A cracked sheet, a corner snapped off by a falling branch, a hole where someone has put a foot through it from inside, all of these let material loose into the air and onto the ground below. Cutting or drilling into it makes things far worse, which is the main reason a do-it-yourself teardown is the wrong move on a roof this age.
A standard single garage is usually roofed with somewhere between eight and a dozen of these sheets, each one around six feet long. We take them down whole rather than snapping them up, which keeps fibre release to a minimum. The sheets are lifted off intact, wrapped and double-bagged on site, then labelled and taken away for licensed disposal at a proper tip. Most single garages are cleared in a day, and a smaller one with clean access can be done in a morning. A wider double garage simply has more sheets to handle, so it takes a little longer.
Garage and shed roofs of this kind are generally non-licensed work, so they do not carry the same heavy controls as the higher-risk jobs. Where a survey or a sample points to a licensed material, the rules change. That means 14 days of notice to the HSE, full enclosure of the work area, and four-stage clearance testing signed off by an independent analyst before anyone goes back inside. We tell you which camp your roof falls into before we start, not after the work has begun.
No skip, no mess on the road
One thing people in Sutton worry about is the state of the place once the work is done. On a terraced or semi-detached street there often is not room for a skip without blocking a neighbour or losing half the road, so we work without one wherever we can. The wrapped sheets go straight into the van and off to a licensed tip the same day. The drive stays usable and the road outside stays clear, which matters on the tighter SM2 streets where parking is already at a premium.
We sweep and check the whole area before we leave, because broken cement fragments are exactly what you do not want left lying on a driveway where children and pets come and go. Small chips can hide in gravel or between paving slabs, so the clear-up is part of the job rather than a quick brush at the end. Owner Graham runs these jobs himself out of Chessington, which is only a short drive away, so you are dealing with the person actually doing the work rather than a crew passed down a chain of subcontractors. That also means a straight price on the day, with no surprise charges once the roof is off and the old felt or timber trim comes away with it. He has been doing this across Sutton and the neighbouring towns for years, so an interwar garage roof holds no surprises.
Putting a new roof on
Stripping the asbestos is only half the job. An open garage needs a new roof over it, and you have a few sensible options once the old cement sheet is down. Galvanised steel box-profile is the closest like-for-like swap, light and quick to fit and a good match for a pitched garage roof. For a flat or shallow span a three-layer torch-on felt system gives you a long-lasting waterproof finish that copes well with standing water. Some owners take the chance to go further and put on a proper flat or tiled roof, especially on a wider double garage or where the garage sits in full view from the house and they want it to look the part.
There is also asbestos-free fibre cement, which looks much like the original corrugated profile without any of the risk, so the garage keeps its character on a street of matching interwar homes. Where the issue is a cement soffit or a boxed-in section at the eaves rather than the whole roof, boxing out the old material behind a clean cladding is sometimes the tidier answer. We can take the lot off and leave you weathertight in the same visit, or strip it back and hand a clean, safe structure to your own roofer if you would rather arrange that side yourself. Either way the asbestos leaves the property properly bagged and documented.
Clearaway works under Spectra licence number 142305706 and has spent more than seven years on garages and outbuildings across Sutton and the surrounding Surrey towns, with samples sent to a UKAS-accredited laboratory whenever a material needs confirming. If you have a tired corrugated garage roof in SM1, SM2 or SM3 that has seen better days, call 0800 024 6168 and Graham will talk you through what it is and what it will take to put right.
Asbestos Soil Fragments Clearance, Chessington
Chessington, Surrey · Soil Clearance
View this project"Graham has organised two jobs for me, both of which ran smoothly and on time. Clive and the team are really great, they completed the work in the agreed time and left the site spotless. Would recommend using Clearaway if you need any work done."
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.