Asbestos Removal Inner West
Servicing Marrickville, Newtown, Balmain, Ashfield, Dulwich Hill & Petersham, and the rest of the Inner West Council area.
Most Inner West housing was built before asbestos cement existed, which changes where it turns up. It is almost never the original structure — it is the rear addition, the re-roofed skillion, the 1950s bathroom and the vinyl tiles under the carpet.
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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 Inner West
- The classic Inner West job is the back of a terrace or a workers' cottage: a lean-to kitchen, laundry or bathroom added between the 1940s and the 1960s in asbestos-cement sheet, with corrugated asbestos-cement roofing over it.
- Vinyl floor tiles and their black bitumen backing are the material most often disturbed here by accident, because they sit under carpet or floating floors and only appear once someone starts pulling a floor up.
- Terraces share walls, and shared walls make containment the hard part. Neighbours have to be worked around rather than notified afterwards, and on a party-wall job the sequencing matters more than the removal itself.
- Balmain and Rozelle carry a second layer from their industrial past — asbestos-cement roofing and cladding on old workshops, boatsheds and stores that have since been converted to housing.
- Waste from the LGA is taken west to the EPA-licensed facility at Eastern Creek that accepts correctly wrapped bonded asbestos.
Inner West work is small-volume and high-difficulty, which is the opposite of the western suburbs. There is rarely a truck’s worth of sheeting; there is frequently no driveway, no side access and no kerb space to park in.
That is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. We would rather look at the street and the rear lane before quoting than discover on the day that every sheet has to go through the house.
Where a job is genuinely small — one bathroom wall, a set of eaves, a floor of vinyl tiles — it is usually done and cleared inside a day, and the house is livable again that evening.
Asbestos services across Inner West
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 Inner West
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