Asbestos in garage roof

Section62

prowla said:

Uneconomical is an overstatement; I have a detached garage with a roof with the corrugated asbestos cement which needs replacing and I've had two quotes under £2k to replace it.

Sure it's not beer money, but it's not uneconomical, especially in the context of a £200k+ house purchase.

I think the surveyor was referring to repairs to the walls being uneconomic, not the roof.

When precast reinforced concrete starts to fail it can be patched up for cosmetic purposes, but permanent repair is difficult without the right expertise and technologies (read: "expensive").

Once water has got to the rebar it is a case of asking how much do I want to spend repairing this temporary structure which from the outset only had a limited design life.

The sensible answer in most cases is "not very much".  Especially if the roof is made from an asbestos-containing material and is also heading towards end of life.

Section62

Chandler85 said:

I had a quote to remove a garage (2 years ago), that had an asbestos roof and suspected asbestos in the walls.

They all came back saying as long as it is empty and access isn't an issue then £750-1250, basically 2 people one day and an asbestos skip.  If you spoke to my surveyor, you'd have thought I'd have been dead by now for sure or about £10k lighter because of it.

You were just lucky.

"Suspected asbestos in the walls" could be something more dangerous than chrysotile asbestos cement.  It isn't unknown for the walls of prefab garages to consist of panels made with rather high asbestos content, and mixes of blue and/or brown fibres can't be ruled out without testing.

Hence the surveyor taking a cautious approach. Because if they said "don't worry about it" and it then turned out to be a £10k job then I'm sure you'd be rather less happy with the outcome.

AdrianC

Nevermoving said:

Thanks for all of your advice. I'm more than happy to purchase the property for the agreed price; I certainly do not want to upset the vendors by trying to renegotiate. Under 2k for a garage roof replacement does not sound too bad at all! 

Read that section in its entirety. The garage is knackered. The walls are falling apart, too. It's not worth re-roofing.

For twice that figure, you could get a complete brand new steel flat-pack garage...
https://www.qualitysteelsheds.co.uk/steel-garage-3m-x-6m/

But when you viewed, you could see the garage was knackered and ancient. You took that into account in offering, and the surveyor agrees that the price you offered reflects that.

You have no credible grounds to reduce your offer...

Chandler85

Section62 said:

Chandler85 said:

I had a quote to remove a garage (2 years ago), that had an asbestos roof and suspected asbestos in the walls.

They all came back saying as long as it is empty and access isn't an issue then £750-1250, basically 2 people one day and an asbestos skip.  If you spoke to my surveyor, you'd have thought I'd have been dead by now for sure or about £10k lighter because of it.

You were just lucky.

"Suspected asbestos in the walls" could be something more dangerous than chrysotile asbestos cement.  It isn't unknown for the walls of prefab garages to consist of panels made with rather high asbestos content, and mixes of blue and/or brown fibres can't be ruled out without testing.

Hence the surveyor taking a cautious approach. Because if they said "don't worry about it" and it then turned out to be a £10k job then I'm sure you'd be rather less happy with the outcome.

It wasn't luck, and I am sure if I tried to have the walls repaired or something then it might have been a different thing.  The people who remove it just assumed it was all asbestos, wore all the suits etc and dealt with it all.

My issue is that the surveyor seemed to have no idea of the cost to deal with the garage and as normal plucked a figure out the air.  If they had just said it probably contains asbestos in the walls and roof, get it investigated properly then I would accept that, same with electrics etc.  They shouldn't rate things as 3s when they have no idea, they should be unknown or similar.

You end up farcical situations where houses have things rated as 3 when they are perfectly fine because the surveyor can't comment, so they put a 3, make up a ridiculous cost to fix things and then claim surveys pay for themselves when you take into account the money you can negotiate down.

AdrianC

Chandler85 said:

They shouldn't rate things as 3s when they have no idea, they should be unknown or similar.

That's what the 3 means.

It means you probably want to pay attention to this. That might be because it needs work, or it might be because you want to get more detail on it.

The survey report explains this.

Mac_70_

Nevermoving said:

Thanks for all of your advice. I'm more than happy to purchase the property for the agreed price; I certainly do not want to upset the vendors by trying to renegotiate. Under 2k for a garage roof replacement does not sound too bad at all! 

If it where me i wouldn't be wasting money on replacing the roof, i'd be replacing the garage.   

Section62

Chandler85 said:

It wasn't luck, and I am sure if I tried to have the walls repaired or something then it might have been a different thing.

It was luck, unless you followed up the surveyor's report and got a full asbestos survey and testing carried out before you bought.

The same as for any property and any potential defect/concern which is an 'unknown'.

If (as a buyer) you don't know something about a property then you can make assumptions about what you might have, and then it comes down to luck whether the actual situation is better or worse than the assumption you've made.

The purpose of a survey is to help people make better assumptions, or confirm/rule out the worst possibilities.

Chandler85 said:

The people who remove it just assumed it was all asbestos, wore all the suits etc and dealt with it all.

That's one of the the main problems with 'asbestos'.  What does "assumed it was all asbestos" mean?

'Asbestos' isn't one thing. It is just a term which loosely describes a collection of silicate minerals, and also various manufactured products containing various quantities of those minerals in different proportions.

E.g. the equivalent to "assumed it was all asbestos" for an electrical inspection would be that the electrician "assumed it was all wire".

As a property buyer being told that asbestos might be present is the first step in assessing the risk they might be taking on. Until the extent of that risk has been quantified the surveyor is absolutely right to warn that the risk could be high and the cost of dealing with it potentially significant. That's their job.

Mac_70_

Section62 said:

Chandler85 said:

It wasn't luck, and I am sure if I tried to have the walls repaired or something then it might have been a different thing.

It was luck, unless you followed up the surveyor's report and got a full asbestos survey and testing carried out before you bought.

It might not have been luck. Alot of cowboy's out there, god knows where they got rid of it. Reading Chandlers post if true, i'd wager on the cowboy job.

If done correctly, which with asbestos it should be, can run into a tidy sum of money.