Asbestos Removal City of Sydney
Servicing Waterloo, Redfern, Glebe, Alexandria, Erskineville & Surry Hills, and the rest of the City of Sydney area.
Inner Sydney's asbestos is rarely in the original building. It is in what was added to it: the 1950s lean-to laundry, the re-sheeted bathroom, the flat-roofed rear addition, the vinyl floor tiles under the carpet and the fibro garage on the back lane. Terrace and warehouse conversions are where most of our City of Sydney work happens.
Get a free, no-obligation quote
Tell us what you have found and we will come back with a price. Prefer to talk? Call 02 8417 2964.
What we see across City of Sydney
- Victorian and Federation terraces across Redfern, Glebe and Erskineville almost never contain asbestos in the original fabric, but the mid-century rear additions bolted onto them very often do.
- Vinyl floor tiles and their bituminous adhesive — a genuine asbestos-containing product — are common under carpet and floating floors in inner-city renovations of this era.
- Alexandria and Rosebery carry converted light-industrial buildings where asbestos-cement roof sheeting, flue lagging and eaves remain in place above finished interiors.
- Terrace access is the real constraint here: no side access, shared walls and street parking, which changes how a removal is staged rather than whether it can be done at all.
Working in the inner city is a logistics problem as much as a removal problem. There is no driveway, the neighbours share a wall, and the council has an opinion about the skip. That is normal for us.
What we will not do is treat a terrace like a suburban block. Containment, negative pressure where it is warranted, and a disposal run that does not involve carrying wrapped sheeting through somebody’s front room.
Suburbs we service in City of Sydney
Asbestos services across City of Sydney
Asbestos removal
Bonded and friable asbestos removed by SafeWork NSW licensed removalists, with sealed transport and lawful disposal documentation on every job.
View asbestos removal →Residential removal
Asbestos removed from homes, garages, sheds, eaves and bathrooms, with the site left clean and the disposal documented.
View residential removal →Commercial removal
Asbestos removed from commercial and industrial sites with staged programmes, full site documentation and minimal disruption to trading.
View commercial removal →Roof removal
Corrugated asbestos-cement roofing removed and replaced in the one job, so the building is watertight the same day.
View roof removal →Fence removal
Asbestos-cement boundary fencing removed cleanly, including posts and buried offcuts, with replacement fencing available.
View fence removal →Soil removal
Contaminated soil excavated, classified and disposed of lawfully, with validation so the site can be signed off and the build can restart.
View soil removal →Asbestos testing
We refer you to a licensed asbestos assessor, who takes the sample safely. A NATA-accredited laboratory analyses it under AS 4964-2004, and you get the result in writing.
View asbestos testing →Inspection
On-site identification, asbestos registers and surveys, clearance and air monitoring, carried out by a licensed asbestos assessor we refer you to.
View inspection →Disposal
Wrapped, sealed and transported to a facility lawfully licensed to accept asbestos waste, with the disposal documentation provided.
View disposal →Demolition
House and commercial demolition and internal strip-outs, with any asbestos removed under licence before demolition starts.
View demolition →
Common questions
Can I remove asbestos myself?
We do not advise it and we do not publish instructions for it. NSW law restricts how much bonded asbestos an unlicensed person may remove, and any friable asbestos is licensed work regardless of quantity. Beyond the legal position, most of the exposure risk in a DIY removal comes from breaking the material and cleaning up afterwards — the two things people get wrong. SafeWork NSW publishes the current rules.
Do I get documentation showing it was disposed of properly?
Yes. Asbestos is a regulated waste stream in NSW, so it has to be wrapped, labelled, transported and received at a facility licensed to accept it. You receive the disposal documentation with your invoice. On friable or Class A work you also receive the clearance certificate issued by a licensed asbestos assessor.
Does the quote include disposal, or is that extra?
Ours includes it, and any quote you compare it against should say so explicitly. Asbestos is a regulated waste stream in NSW: it has to be received at a facility lawfully licensed to accept asbestos, and those facilities charge by the tonne on top of the NSW waste levy. A quote that leaves disposal out is either burying it elsewhere in the price or is not planning to dispose of the waste lawfully. Ask for the disposal line to be itemised before you accept anything.
How do I check that an asbestos removalist is actually licensed?
Ask for the name of the entity that holds the licence — which is not always the trading name on the van — and search it yourself on the NSW public licence register at verify.licence.nsw.gov.au. It is free, it takes about a minute, and it shows the licence class and its status. Two things to check beyond the fact a licence exists: that it is current, and that its class actually covers the work you are asking for.
How long does asbestos removal take?
Most residential jobs are done in a single day. A garage roof or a fence run is usually a few hours; a full house strip-out or friable removal with air monitoring and a clearance certificate takes longer, because the area has to stay isolated until the clearance is issued. We give you a realistic timeframe with the quote rather than after the job starts.
How much asbestos can be removed in NSW without a licence?
Under the NSW work health and safety regulation, an unlicensed person may remove up to 10 square metres of non-friable (bonded) asbestos in total — and the 10 square metres is cumulative, so it cannot be split across several small jobs. Anything above that requires at least a Class B asbestos removal licence, and friable asbestos in any quantity requires a Class A licence. SafeWork NSW recommends using a licensed removalist for any amount. We do not publish removal instructions and we do not recommend DIY removal.
Who is allowed to issue the clearance certificate?
For friable (Class A) removal, the clearance certificate must come from a licensed asbestos assessor who is independent of the business that did the removal — SafeWork NSW treats an existing working relationship as a conflict that disqualifies independence. The same assessor carries out the air monitoring, and the enclosure cannot be dismantled until measured fibre levels are below 0.01 fibres per millilitre. For non-friable removal, a clearance can be issued by either a competent person or a licensed assessor.
Asbestos removal across City of Sydney
Do not touch it, break it or sweep it up. Send us a photo from a safe distance and we will tell you what you are looking at and what it costs to remove.
Monday – Sunday, 9am – 5pm · Greater Sydney & the Central Coast