Asbestos Removal Blue Mountains
Licensed asbestos removal, asbestos roof removal and demolition from Glenbrook and Springwood up to Katoomba, Blackheath and Mount Victoria. SafeWork NSW licence AD213403, Class B, our own crew, and waste documented all the way to the EPA-licensed facility.
Call 0452 224 398 for a free on-site quote.
Mountains cottages, weather and fire: why asbestos is a bigger deal up here
The Mountains have an older housing stock than most of Sydney. Weatherboard and fibro cottages from the 1920s to the 1970s line the streets of Katoomba, Leura, Blackheath, Lawson and Hazelbrook, a lot of them built as holiday houses and later lived in year-round. Springwood, Winmalee, Blaxland and Glenbrook filled in with post-war fibro and then brick veneer, and nearly every block has a fibro garage, shed or lean-to somewhere on it. Super Six corrugated asbestos roofing is still on a surprising number of them.
Three things make asbestos work different in the Mountains. The weather is harder on it: frost, damp and moss break down asbestos cement faster than the Sydney basin does, so roofs and eaves up here are often already shedding fibres. The blocks are steep and access is awkward, which changes how we set up and how we get waste out. And fire. Asbestos in a burnt building is no longer bonded, it is friable, and clearing a fire-damaged house or shed is Class A work with full enclosure and air monitoring, not a job for a skip and a shovel.
Licensed asbestos removal across the Blue Mountains. SafeWork NSW licence AD213403, Class B.
Removal, roofs, demolition and testing across the Mountains
Asbestos removal and abatement
Bonded sheeting, roofing, fences and linings removed whole where possible, wetted, wrapped and sealed on the block, with exposed frames sealed with PVA.
Asbestos roof removal
Super Six roofs come off sheet by sheet with no power tools. Sheets are wrapped on the ground, gutters cleared and the roof space vacuumed and sealed. We work in with your roofing contractor so the house is not left open to Mountains weather any longer than it has to be.
Demolition in the Blue Mountains
Sheds, garages, cottages and small commercial buildings. Most Mountains demolitions involve asbestos, so we do the licensed removal and the demolition as one job with one clearance certificate in between. Demolition needs council approval; the asbestos removal on its own does not.
Testing and disposal
Samples go to a NATA-accredited laboratory (how testing works) so you are not paying for licensed removal of plasterboard. Waste is transported to an EPA-licensed facility on the same trip as the crew, with the documentation supplied to you afterwards.
Air monitoring and clearance
Air monitoring runs on friable jobs, and an independent licensed assessor issues the clearance certificate at the end of every licensed removal. You have it before your roofer, builder or demolition crew takes over, and it stays with the property file for the next sale or insurer.
Insulation removal
Old ceiling insulation comes out when a damaged ceiling or roof has contaminated it, or when the ceiling itself is coming down. Loose-fill asbestos insulation is rare in NSW but it exists; if your house is on the NSW loose-fill register, or you are not sure, tell us before we quote.
Where we find it in Mountains homes
The usual finds on Mountains jobs:
- Super Six roofing on cottages, garages and sheds
- Weathered external wall sheeting and gable ends
- Eaves, and the fibro linings of enclosed verandahs and sleep-outs
- Wet-area linings in bathrooms, kitchens and laundries
- Old sheds, garages and chook houses at the back of the block
- Ceiling insulation that is contaminated or has to come out with the ceiling
Where we work in the Mountains
Lower Mountains
Lapstone, Glenbrook, Blaxland, Mount Riverview, Warrimoo, Sun Valley, Valley Heights, Springwood, Winmalee, Yellow Rock, Hawkesbury Heights and Faulconbridge.
Mid Mountains
Linden, Woodford, Hazelbrook, Lawson, Bullaburra and Wentworth Falls.
Upper Mountains
Leura, Katoomba, Medlow Bath, Blackheath, Mount Victoria and Bell. The oldest cottages, the harshest weather and the steepest blocks.
Heading further west over the range? Lithgow, Portland and Wallerawang are on our Lithgow page. Emu Plains and Penrith are covered from our Penrith page.
Holiday cottages and short-stay renovations
A lot of Mountains work now comes from owners turning an old Leura or Blackheath cottage into a short-stay property. The renovation that makes it lettable, a new bathroom, a re-lined kitchen, a re-roof, is exactly the work that disturbs asbestos, and a guest house has to be clean to a higher standard than a home you live in yourself. Test before the builder starts, remove what has to go while the place is empty, and keep the clearance certificate with the property file. It is the document a future buyer or an insurer asks for.
Owners who are not in the Mountains full time can run the whole job remotely with us: photos for the quote, key access arranged with your property manager, and the certificate and waste paperwork emailed at the end.
How a Blue Mountains job runs
- Quote. Send photos or have us come up. We give a fixed written price covering removal, disposal and the clearance certificate, and a start date.
- SafeWork NSW notification lodged by us at least five days before licensed removal starts.
- Access and set-up. On sloping blocks this is where the planning goes: scaffold or roof anchors, a clean path for wrapped sheets to the truck, barriers and signage, decontamination point.
- Removal. Wetted down, fixings removed, sheets kept whole, wrapped in heavy plastic, sealed and labelled on site. Frames and cut edges sealed with PVA. Roof spaces vacuumed.
- Disposal at an EPA-licensed facility, documentation supplied.
- Clearance from an independent licensed assessor before your roofer, builder or demolition crew takes over.
What a typical Mountains job looks like
The most common Mountains call is a cottage or garage with a Super Six roof or weathered fibro walls, where the owner is either renovating, re-roofing or has had a sheet crack. A single-storey roof on a flat block is a day. A re-clad of a whole cottage on a sloping Katoomba block, with scaffolding, is two to three.
The second most common is a shed or garage demolition where the whole structure is asbestos, and the third is fire damage, where a building or outbuilding has burnt and what is left has to be treated as friable.
Because we come up from Sydney, we plan Mountains jobs so the crew, the truck and the waste run happen in one trip, and we watch the forecast. Nobody removes a roof in a Blackheath storm.
Photos: HRC asbestos removal jobs. Roof strips, external cladding and shed work of the kind we do in the Mountains.
Blue Mountains asbestos questions
Answers to what Mountains owners ask us most. For anything else, call 0452 224 398.
Size, material and access set the price, and access matters more up here than in Sydney. A garage roof on a flat Springwood block and a full re-clad on a steep Katoomba block are very different jobs. We quote fixed after seeing it. See our cost guide for what drives the number.
We do the asbestos roof removal and hand a clean, cleared roof frame to your roofing contractor. We schedule with them so the two jobs run back to back and the house is not left open.
No. Fire turns bonded asbestos into friable asbestos, and clearing it is Class A licensed work with a sealed work zone and air monitoring. Do not disturb it. Call us and we will assess it.
Yes, with the asbestos removed and cleared first. Demolition needs approval from Blue Mountains City Council (either complying development or a DA); the asbestos removal itself does not.
Under NSW law, up to 10 m² of bonded asbestos can be removed without a licence, but the safety and disposal rules still apply and weathered Mountains fibro is exactly the material that should not be handled casually. Friable asbestos always needs a Class A removalist. We have written about the 10 m² rule.
Yes. Katoomba, Blackheath and Mount Victoria are regular work for us, and we plan the trip so the crew and waste run happen in one go.
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