Asbestos removal in Traralgon: what each job involves

Matching your job to a page

• Fibro fences. Grey cement sheet between the blocks, flat panels in a frame or corrugated sheets standing on their own. Under Victoria's Fences Act the neighbour may share the cost.
• Super six roofs, eaves and gables. Wide-profile cement roofing on houses and garages, plus the flat sheet under the eaves and in the gable ends of older houses.
• Sheds, garages and carports. The whole outbuilding or just its roof. Often the biggest single pile of cement sheet on an older block.
• Bathroom and kitchen renovations. Sheet behind the tiles, under the vinyl, around the old laundry trough. This is the one people find by accident with a crowbar.
• Storm, flood and fire damage. Sheeting that's been snapped, soaked or burnt, which can change the licence class the job needs.
• House demolition. Knock-down-rebuild on the bigger old blocks. The asbestos comes out first, then the demolition crew moves in.
• Testing and inspection. Samples, pre-purchase checks and clearance certificates, when you need a lab answer before anyone quotes.

What the age of the house tells you

The street you live on is a decent first guess at what you'll find. Traralgon's older housing came in waves, and every wave before 1990 falls on the "probably contains asbestos" side of the line Latrobe City's homeowner fact sheet draws.

The railway cottages south of the line around Queen's Parade and the early 1900s houses on the old Traralgon Park estate, around Moore Street and Gordon Crescent, have been added to over a century, and any extension or sleepout built before 1990 is worth a look.

The APM estates from the late 1930s and 1940s, and the Housing Commission houses around Gordon Street finished in 1952, are the town's post-war core. Where they've been renovated or extended, the wet areas, eaves and outbuildings are where to look.

The Loy Yang growth years from the 1970s into the 1980s filled the town with brick veneer. As we read that era, rather than from any survey of Traralgon, those houses commonly have cement sheet eaves, cement sheet behind the bathroom tiles, and a super six garage or shed out the back. So a re-roof, a bathroom gut or a garage coming down on a house of that age is worth a test before anyone starts.

Anything built after the end of 2003, like the newer estates on the north and east edges of town, shouldn't contain asbestos building products at all. For the full story see Traralgon homes by era.

Around the towns

Churchill is its own case. The Housing Commission built it from 1965 as a new town for power-industry workers, and the houses were built in brick. So the questions there are less about the walls and more about the garages, carports, sheds and bathrooms added on blocks built before 1990. See Churchill.

Out at Tyers, Glengarry and Toongabbie, the 1970s brought people onto new subdivisions and small acreages, many of them working in the power industry. Acreage means sheds, and sheds from that era mean super six. Toongabbie also has some unusual stock: two dozen houses were moved there from Yallourn between 1976 and 1981. See Tyers and Glengarry.

South of town, Callignee and parts of Traralgon South were largely rebuilt after the 2009 Churchill fire. A home built since then shouldn't contain asbestos products, but a shed or outbuilding that survived the fire might be older. See Traralgon South and Callignee.

When one job turns into two

A job can easily cross pages. A garage with a super six roof might also have an old lagged hot water pipe inside, which is friable and needs a Class A licence rather than Class B. A bathroom renovation often turns up sheet under the floor vinyl as well as behind the tiles. A fence knocked down in a storm is both a fence job and a damage job.

That's fine. Tell whoever you engage everything you've spotted, even if you're not sure it's relevant, and ask for it to be quoted as one job. Two separate call-outs each carry their own setup, wrapping and tip run, so one visit that covers the lot usually works out better. Ask which parts, if any, need a test first. If the storm-damaged fence is broken or burnt, that part is urgent on its own: if the material is broken, burnt or blown down and you need someone today, don't register here: ring a licensed removalist directly from WorkSafe Victoria's directory.

From the first photo to the clearance certificate

Every licensed job runs through the same steps, whatever the material. They're set out once, here, and the other pages point back to this list.

• Photos and a size. One of the whole thing, one close up of an edge or a corner, one of any damage. Say which town you're in, whether that's Traralgon, Churchill, Glengarry or out towards Callignee, and give a rough size: metres of fence, the footprint of the shed, or which rooms are being renovated. Mention anything you already know, like an old test result, a building inspector's note from when you bought, or the year the house was extended.
• Who picks it up. No licensed removalist covers Traralgon through this site yet. Your enquiry is logged as a registration of interest. Tick the box and we'll let you know once one is confirmed for your town; your details move across only if you reply yes to that message. Need someone sooner, use WorkSafe Victoria's directory.
• The written quote. It should name what's coming out and roughly how many square metres, the licence class the job needs, and the licence holder's name and number so you can look them up on WorkSafe Victoria's register. It should also say whether the work is bonded or friable, where the waste is going, whether a clearance certificate is needed, and what's left behind: posts, frames, a slab or bare roof battens. The cost guide has the published ranges.
• The control plan. The removalist writes an asbestos control plan for the job, however small, and gives you a copy.
• The WorkSafe notice. Lodged before work starts, either five days or 24 hours ahead depending on the material and the area, and you get a copy.
• The work itself. The area taped off and signed, the sheet kept damp, fixings undone by hand, and everything double-wrapped in heavy plastic before it leaves the site.
• The clearance. After any friable work, or more than 10 square metres of bonded sheet, an independent person inspects the area and issues a clearance certificate before it's used again. At a private home the removalist arranges it.
• The waste record. A removalist's load can't go through the council's Hyland Highway arrangement, which is for homeowners' own loads, so it goes to an EPA-licensed facility. Ask for the EPA Waste Tracker record. Filed with the clearance certificate, it's the paperwork a buyer or a builder will want to see later.

The contact page has the form, and the disposal page has the council tip rules.