Asbestos Garage Removal and Demolition in Guildford

Sometimes the roof is not the problem. The garage is.

The frame has rusted through, the doors have not shut properly since 2009, the whole thing is leaning, and what you actually want is the plot back. Taking the asbestos off and leaving a derelict shell standing is half a job. This is the other version: sheets, frame, doors and everything else, in one visit, with a clear plot at the end.

The two stages, and why they never overlap

Asbestos removal and demolition are separate operations and they happen in that order, always.

Stage one is the asbestos. Roof sheets, and any wall cladding or soffit board, come off under controlled conditions exactly as they would if that were the whole job. Sheeting down, damping, cutting fixings rather than levering, wrapping whole sheets, double-bagging anything that broke.

Stage two only starts once the site is clear of asbestos and has been checked. Then the frame, the doors, the concrete panels and the rest come down as ordinary construction waste and go out on a different vehicle at a different rate.

Mixing the two is how a contained job becomes a contaminated one. If a demolition firm quotes you a single price to knock the lot down without ever asking what the roof is made of, that is the quote to walk away from.

What it costs

A full garage demolition including the asbestos sheets is £1,500 to £2,500, indicative.

The number moves on four things.

How much of it is asbestos. A concrete sectional garage with a cement roof has asbestos on the roof only, and the walls are ordinary concrete going out as construction waste at a fraction of the hazardous rate. A garage clad in asbestos sheet on all four sides is a different job. The disposal rate for hazardous waste is £0.55 to £0.80 per kilogram and it is the single biggest lever on the price.

Machine access. A garage a machine can reach is quicker than one that has to come down by hand because the only way in is a side gate three feet wide.

The slab. Leaving it costs nothing. Breaking it out and carting it away depends on thickness, reinforcement and, again, whether a machine can get to it.

What is inside. An empty garage is quicker than one with forty years of paint tins, a dead freezer and a motorbike in it. Clearing that is chargeable and it is cheaper if you do it first.

If only the roof needs to go, asbestos garage roof removal is the smaller and much cheaper job. Full price ranges for both are on the cost page.

Concrete sectional garages

A large share of Surrey garages from the 1960s and 1970s are precast concrete sectional: interlocking concrete posts and panels, a steel or timber roof frame, and corrugated asbestos cement over the top. You can recognise them by the vertical joints every couple of feet and the slightly pebbled surface.

They matter here for one reason. The asbestos is on the roof and nowhere else, so the hazardous portion is small and the rest is bulk concrete. Panels are heavy and they come apart in a known sequence, which is why they are usually straightforward to take down once the roof is off.

The same is not true of an asbestos-clad garage where the walls are cement sheet as well. There the whole envelope is hazardous waste, the weight adds up quickly, and the price sits at the top of the range or above it.

Paired and shared garages

Estate garages of this age were often built in pairs or in a run, sharing a dividing wall or a continuous roof. Guildford has plenty of these, particularly around the council-built blocks at Park Barn and Stoughton and behind the terraces at Westborough.

A shared structure changes the job in a way worth knowing before you get quotes. Your neighbour's side has to be left stable and weathertight, and the boundary between what is yours and what is theirs is frequently not where either of you thinks it is. That is a conversation to have with them first. Occasionally the practical answer is that the roof can be dealt with now and the structure has to wait until both owners want it gone.

Send a photo of the pair rather than just your half. It is usually obvious from the picture which situation you are in.

Clearing it out first

Almost every garage that is about to be demolished is full, and what is in it changes the price more than people expect.

Ordinary contents are easy. Tools, garden furniture, bicycles, boxes, an old sofa. We can clear those as part of the job and they go out as household or bulky waste.

Four things cannot go on the same load and are worth pulling out before we arrive. Paint and solvent, which are hazardous waste of a different class. Old fuel, including a half-full petrol can behind the mower. Gas bottles, which nobody will take mixed in with anything else. And fridges or freezers, which have their own disposal route because of the refrigerant.

None of that is difficult. It just needs doing separately, and it is far cheaper if you do it rather than if it turns up as an extra line at the end.

Also worth checking before the day: whether anything in there is actually yours. Shared and rear-block garages accumulate other people's belongings over decades, and the week of the demolition is a poor time to find out.

Asbestos in the walls, not just the roof

The assumption is usually that the roof is the asbestos and everything else is not. That is right on a concrete sectional garage and wrong on several other common types.

Look for flat grey sheet on the gable ends above the door, which was a normal way to close off the triangle at the top. Look at the underside of the eaves, where a cement soffit board often runs the length of the building. Look at any internal lining panel, particularly around where a boiler or a flue once was, because that is where insulating board turns up rather than cement.

The distinction matters for the price. Roof-only means a small hazardous portion and a large ordinary one. Fully clad means the whole envelope is hazardous waste at £0.55 to £0.80 per kilogram, and cement sheet is heavy.

It also matters for the classification. Cement is non-licensed work carried out directly. Insulating board is licensed work and goes to an HSE-licensed contractor, which is a different quote and a different timescale. A photograph of the inside as well as the outside is what settles it.

What is left behind

A clear plot, swept, with the slab either intact or gone depending on what you asked for.

You get a hazardous waste consignment note covering the asbestos portion, recording what it was, who carried it and which permitted site accepted it. Keep it for at least three years. Construction waste from the demolition is documented separately and is not part of that note, which is normal and worth understanding rather than worrying about.

If the slab stays, you will see its real condition for the first time in decades. Cracking, damp patches and old drainage runs all become visible, and it is worth looking before you commit to building anything on it.

What you get back, and what to do with it

The most common reason people demolish rather than reroof is that they want the space for something else, and it is worth thinking about that before the machine arrives rather than after.

A single garage footprint is typically around fifteen square metres. That is a garden room, a home office, a decent workshop, two parking spaces, or a very large shed. The slab you are standing on was almost certainly laid for a car, which means it is usually thick enough and level enough for most of those, and it saves the cost of a new base.

What it may not be suitable for is anything with a foundation requirement, which is a question for whoever builds the replacement rather than for us. What we can tell you is what condition it is in once the structure is off, which is genuinely the first time anyone has seen the whole thing in decades. Cracking, sinking at one corner, old drainage runs and the outline of an even earlier building all become visible at that point.

The other thing that becomes visible is the boundary. Garages built up to a fence line are extremely common, and the fence is frequently not where the deeds say the line is. Once the building is gone that becomes a live question, so it is worth knowing which side of it you are on before you commit to a new structure in the same place.

Around Guildford

Garage demolition is more sensitive to access than almost anything else we do, and Guildford's older estates are where that shows.

A detached garage on a wide 1960s plot in Merrow or Burpham, with its own drive and space for a lorry, is straightforward. A garage in a rear block behind a Westborough or Bellfields terrace, where the only approach is a shared footpath, is the same building and a longer, more expensive job, because everything comes out by hand and by barrow.

We cover Guildford and the towns around it, from Woking and Leatherhead down to Godalming, Cranleigh and Haslemere, and west over the Hog's Back to Farnham, Aldershot and Farnborough. The areas we cover page has the detail for each.