Asbestos Removal Cumberland
Servicing Merrylands, Guildford, Auburn, Granville, Greystanes & Wentworthville, and the rest of the Cumberland City Council area.
Cumberland is the densest concentration of post-war fibro left in Sydney. The LGA was built out between the late 1940s and the mid 1960s on quarter-acre blocks, and the pattern repeats street after street: brick or fibro house at the front, asbestos-cement garage and laundry at the back, asbestos-cement fence down both sides.
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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 Cumberland
- The characteristic Cumberland job is not the house — it is the rear structures. Garages, lock-up workshops, laundries and fowl sheds from the 1950s were built in asbestos cement almost by default, and most are still standing behind houses that have since been renovated twice.
- Dual-occupancy and granny-flat approvals across Merrylands, Guildford and Greystanes mean a lot of removal work is triggered by a rear-yard build rather than by a problem with the material itself. The old garage has to come out before the slab can go down.
- Granville straddles the Cumberland–Parramatta boundary at the railway line, so a Granville address can sit in either LGA. It makes no difference to how the job is done, but it does change which council's waste and building rules apply.
- Waste from this LGA runs west to the EPA-licensed facility at Eastern Creek that accepts correctly wrapped bonded asbestos.
Most of what we take out of Cumberland is bonded sheeting in good condition, which is the straightforward end of the work: seal the area, remove the sheets whole rather than breaking them, wrap, and take the load to a facility licensed to receive it.
The two things that change a Cumberland quote are access and quantity. A rear garage behind a narrow driveway means everything is carried by hand to the street. And once a job includes the garage, the laundry and eighty metres of fence line, it stops being a half-day removal.
We quote on site for that reason. A photo over the phone will tell us what the material probably is; it will not tell us how far it has to be carried.
Asbestos services across Cumberland
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 Cumberland
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