Asbestos Surveys in Wandsworth

A survey is not removal. It is the step before, the part where we work out whether asbestos is present in a Wandsworth property, where it sits, and what condition it is in. Nobody touches anything. The point is to know what you are dealing with before a builder lifts a floor, a buyer signs, or a managing agent lets work start on a block.

Wandsworth makes this worth doing properly. The housing runs from the tight Victorian terraces of the Tonsleys and the slopes of East Hill, through the mansion flats and conversions around Wandsworth Common, out to the postwar estates off Garratt Lane and the warehouse buildings near the old Ram Brewery that are now flats. Almost all of it was built, extended and re-fitted before asbestos was banned in the UK in 1999. The material is still woven through the local stock, and you cannot tell which house has it by looking from the pavement.

Much of SW18 has also been carved up and converted. A single Edwardian house off Trinity Road might now be three flats, each refurbished at a different time by a different owner, each with its own layers of artex, tile adhesive and boxing. A survey reads all of that and writes it down.

Where asbestos turns up here tends to follow the building. In the terraces it is artex on ceilings and walls, vinyl floor tiles on black bitumen, soffits and gutters on the roofline, and pipe lagging around old heating runs in a basement. In the warehouse conversions near the Ram Brewery there can be insulating board, sprayed coatings and lagging left over from the building's working days, sitting under the residential fit-out. A survey is how you find which of these you actually have, rather than guessing from the age of the kitchen.

Most surveys we are called to in SW18 sit around a transaction or a tenancy. Someone is buying a terrace near Wandsworth Common and wants to know what is behind the artex before they exchange. A landlord is letting a converted flat and needs to show the material has been found and assessed. A managing agent is about to authorise work on a block off Garratt Lane and cannot let a contractor start blind.

A pre-purchase survey is a cheap thing to do against the price of a Wandsworth house, and it changes what you know before you commit. If asbestos is found, that is not always a reason to walk away. It is information you can use, on price, on timing, and on who deals with it. Far better to have it in writing before contracts than to find lagging in a basement riser the week the builders arrive.

For older converted property the picture is rarely simple, because each flat in a split house may have been refitted separately. A survey treats the whole building honestly rather than assuming a newer-looking kitchen means the rest is clear.

Landlords have their own reason to survey, separate from any sale. Letting a flat in SW18 means being able to show the asbestos in it has been found and assessed and that tenants are not living next to material in poor condition. A management survey gives you that on paper, and it sits on file as the record you can point to. It is a small piece of work set against the cost of finding a problem the hard way, once a tenant or a contractor has already disturbed something.