Asbestos Surveys
Since May 2004 people responsible for
non-domestic premises have needed to know about
Asbestos Containing Materials (ACM's) on their premises, its
location, condition and how to manage it. This requires each
building to have an asbestos register and management
plan available on site.
Additionally, if you are working on domestic
premises, you have a duty of care to ensure that any potential
asbestos containing materials (ACM's) are not disturbed during your
work and an asbestos survey must identify these and
assist in planning the work.
Our surveyors have extensive experience, having
initially started within the industry as asbestos operatives,
before progressing through the company. This gives an excellent
level of competence due to extensive on site experience and
insight into where potential ACM's can be found. All are fully
qualified to current industry standards (BOHS P402) and have
experience of surveying anything from a small residential flat
through to large offices and industrial sites that are in constant
use. We offer all types of survey as detailed below and also
the periodic inspections that are required every 6-12 months to
manage the register. All samples are tested at an independent UKAS
Accredited Laboratory.
Management Survey (presumptive)
These are visual inspections only and it must be presumed that
any suspect material contains asbestos, unless there is
strong evidence to conclude that it
is highly unlikely to contain asbestos.
The potential ACM location is photographed and a
data record is filled in with regards to material type, extent
and condition. This data is then transferred to the main survey
document. Without laboratory analysis there are still
questions unanswered and the duty holder could
bear additional cost of managing some non asbestos containing
materials.
Management Survey (sampling)
This is the most preferred type of survey carried out as it
provides a laboratory confirmed result. The procedure and cost of
the survey is usually the same as a presumptive
survey but has the additional cost of the samples and the
benefit of their results. The process is the same as in the
presumptive survey but a small sample of the potential
ACM is taken to be tested at a UKAS Accredited Laboratory.
This ensures that only confirmed ACM's are managed and if no
asbestos is found, no management plan is required.
Refurbishment and Demolition Survey
The surveyor follows the same process as for a Managing
Survey but investigation is fully intrusive. If it
is suspected that there may be asbestos under the floor, in the
walls or between layers of the ceiling, an endoscope is used or the
structure must be opened up to reveal potentially hidden asbestos.
This may cause damage to the fabric of the building but is
obviously required if the building is to be demolished or if the
interior design of the building is going to be changed. Our
full HSE licence ensures that we are able to build air tight
enclosures under negative pressure to ensure we are able to
intrusively investigate any voids within the work area.
Management Plan
This is a live document that must be created to show how you are
managing identified asbestos. This also aids planning any
remediation work that may be required ensuring that it is as cost
effective as possible. Our management team will create a
simple to use management plan that confirms your priorities
and advise on how to maintain your management
plan. For products that return a low risk assessment
score, we can provide training to enable the ongoing
management to be carried out in house. Alternatively we can
carry out a cradle to grave service which would include the
required periodic inspections, ongoing risk and priorities
assessment, remediation planning and subsequent updating of your
management plan.
Additional information about this regulation is available
by clicking on the HSE web link to
the right or there is an HSE Step
by Step Guide which gives 12 steps to managing asbestos to
aid creation of your own survey and management plan, which can be
found here.