Asbestos removal in Tyers, Glengarry and Toongabbie

Three towns with a shared story

Tyers had its school by 1879, a hall by 1888 and a butter factory by 1893. Its people went on to work at the Yallourn and Morwell power stations and the Maryvale mill, and from the 1970s more arrived to live on the small acreages around the town. It had 893 people in 2021.

Glengarry, nine kilometres north of Traralgon, now works as an outer suburb of it. Soldier-settlement estates were set up around it after both world wars. The milk factory closed in 1973, and in the same decade power industry families moved onto new subdivisions in the town and acreages outside it. Counts vary with the boundary used: 677 people in 2006, 1,360 in 2011 on a larger boundary, and 1,113 in the 2021 Census locality. Because the lines keep moving, those figures can't be read as a growth trend.

Toongabbie, about 20 kilometres north-east of Traralgon, began as a staging post for the Walhalla goldfield. It had a second growth spurt in the 1970s, with Loy Yang workers among the arrivals, and reached 453 people by 1986. It had 1,085 in 2021.

Between them the three localities had about 1,230 private dwellings at the 2021 Census. Nearly every one is a detached house and very few are rented: at the 2021 Census about 4 per cent of Tyers homes, 9 per cent in Glengarry and under 4 per cent in Toongabbie. So out here, the shed usually belongs to whoever lives beside it.

Check every building on the block

A 1970s acreage block usually carries more than a house. There's a garage, a machinery shed, a carport, a pump or tank shed, sometimes a stable or an old farm building that came with the land. As we read the period, corrugated asbestos cement roofing (the super six profile is the one people know) and flat fibro wall sheets were common on outbuildings of the time, alongside the eaves and wet-area sheet in the house.

So walk the block before you ask for a quote. Note each building, what the roof and walls look like, and roughly how big it is. Photograph a broken edge if there is one, and ask for every building to be priced in the one quote. See sheds, garages and carports and roofs and eaves.

If it's the neighbour's shed that's falling to bits, the Latrobe Valley Asbestos Taskforce's who-does-what guide treats a deteriorating shed or fence on a residential property as a council matter: Latrobe City on 1300 367 700. Sheets dumped along a back road go to EPA Victoria on 1300 372 842 if it's a large amount on public land, or to council if it's a small amount.

The Yallourn houses at Toongabbie

Between 1976 and 1981, 24 houses were moved from Yallourn to Toongabbie. One of them was the 1929 house built for Yallourn's general superintendent.

That matters for asbestos because a moved house is older than its address. A place that has stood in Toongabbie since 1980 may be decades older than that, and may have been renovated, re-roofed or extended after the move. Date the house by when it was built, and date each addition separately. If you're not sure of the history, a test on the sheet you're about to disturb settles it.

Which tip, and which council

Tyers, Glengarry and the Toongabbie township are in Latrobe City, so a resident's own small load can go to the Hyland Highway Landfill at Loy Yang by appointment, on the terms set out on the disposal page.

Toongabbie is the odd one out. Parts of the locality east and north of the township are in Wellington Shire, and a Wellington resident doesn't qualify for the Latrobe resident fee. Wellington's facility for domestic asbestos is the Kilmany Resource Recovery Centre on Velore Road, by prior arrangement on 1300 366 244. Wellington's pages say Kilmany refuses commercial loads and charges domestic asbestos by the tonne, with a minimum fee, so check the current figure when you book. Your rates notice tells you which council you're in.

A licensed removalist's load isn't affected by any of this. It's commercial waste and goes to an EPA-licensed facility the removalist arranges.

Getting a quote on a block north of town

• Send photos and sizes for each building, plus anything about access: a long drive, a locked gate, dogs, a soft paddock after rain. Then we register your job and, if you ask us to, tell you when a licensed removalist covers your town; nobody rings you from this site in the meantime.
• Ask how travel is priced. The published 2026 cost guides note that regional travel adds to the minimum call-out; the cost guide has their ranges and what moves them.
• Expect hand tools and a fine mist from a hose on the sheets, not a grinder or a pressure washer. If someone reaches for either, ask why.
• A big shed roof is almost always over 10 square metres, which brings the five-day WorkSafe notice and an independent clearance. The rest of the paperwork follows the sequence on the services page.

Register your job