Asbestos Roofing Removal in Kingston Upon Thames
Drive through Berrylands or up onto Kingston Hill and you will spot them: low cement sheet roofs on sheds, lean-tos and old outbuildings, slowly greening over. A lot of them hold asbestos, and we take them down safely.
The grey roofs behind Kingston's houses
Walk the back lanes around Norbiton and Canbury, or look over the fences on the 1930s streets running out to Berrylands and the Tudor Estate, and a certain kind of roof keeps turning up. Pale grey, faintly corrugated, sitting over a shed, a lean-to, a coal store or a long-forgotten workshop. It is asbestos cement sheet, and in Kingston upon Thames it is everywhere once you start counting.
Much of it went up between the 1930s and the 1980s, when cement sheet was the cheap, quick way to roof anything that was not the house itself. The big interwar and postwar villas up on Kingston Hill and across Coombe often have substantial outbuildings behind them, garden rooms, stores and old garaging, and plenty of those were topped in the same material. Down towards the Hogsmill the older commercial and riverside units have it too, on a larger scale.
None of it is a problem while the sheet is whole and left alone. The trouble starts when the roof gets old, and in Kingston a lot of these roofs are now very old indeed.
Why a weathered roof is the real worry
Asbestos cement is mostly cement, with the fibres locked inside. New and intact, it holds them tight. But sheet that has sat through forty or fifty Surrey winters does not stay intact. Rain, frost and sun break down the cement surface over time. The face goes chalky and powdery, moss and lichen take hold, and the sheet grows brittle.
That surface erosion is exactly what makes a tired roof higher risk than a sound one. As the cement wears away, loose fibres can wash off in the rain or lift on the wind. A cracked sheet on a back extension, a corner snapped off a shed roof, a section that has started to sag and split, these are the ones worth dealing with rather than ignoring.
We see the same pattern on the smaller details as well as the roofs. On the interwar semis towards Berrylands and New Malden, the soffits, fascia boards and gutters were sometimes formed from asbestos cement, and these weather and crack in the same way. People often replace a roof and leave the grey soffits in place without realising what they are.
How we take a roof down
The aim with a cement sheet roof is simple. Keep the sheets whole and keep the dust down. We do not smash them up, drop them or cut them on site if it can be avoided. Each sheet is unbolted or eased free by hand, lowered down rather than thrown, and kept in one piece.
Before anything moves, the sheets get damped down so the surface cannot give off dust as it is handled. They come off the roof one at a time, get wrapped and sealed, and are loaded for disposal at a licensed facility under the proper paperwork. The same care applies to soffits, gutters and fascia runs, which are removed as whole lengths wherever the fixings allow.
Most domestic cement sheet roofing on sheds, outbuildings, lean-tos and flat-roof extensions is non-licensed work, which means we can plan it, do it and clear up in a day or two without a long lead time. Where the job is bigger or the material is more friable, for instance an old commercial roof or anything that turns out to be insulating board rather than cement sheet, it moves into licensed work. That brings 14 days notice to the HSE before we start, a full enclosure around the work, and four-stage clearance testing signed off by an independent analyst afterwards. We will tell you plainly which category your roof falls into before any work begins.
What goes on once the old roof is gone
Taking the asbestos off is only half the conversation. The other half is what you put back, and that depends on the building and what you want from it. For a shed, a store or a garden outbuilding, galvanised steel box-profile sheet is the usual answer, light, quick to fit and good for decades. For a flat-roof extension, a three-layer torch-on felt system gives a proper sealed finish.
Where the building deserves something better looking, a tiled or fully flat roof can replace the old sheets entirely, which often suits the outbuildings behind the larger Kingston Hill and Coombe villas. And if you want to keep the same profile without the asbestos, modern asbestos-free fibre cement sheet looks much like the original but carries none of the risk.
Clearaway is based just down the road in Chessington, so Kingston is home patch. The owner, Graham, runs the local jobs himself rather than passing them to a crew you never meet. We hold a full asbestos licence from the HSE, number 142305706, and we have worked across this part of Surrey for more than seven years, with samples checked by a UKAS-accredited laboratory. If you have a grey cement roof on a shed, an extension or an outbuilding and you want to know what you are dealing with, call us on 0800 024 6168.
Licensed Asbestos Removal, Woking
Woking, Surrey · Licensed 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
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.