What You Need to Know About Asbestos Surveys

Because of the potential dangers surrounding asbestos exposure, a mass of legislation has been introduced over the years to ensure the protection of workers and members of the public. One of the toughest pieces of legislation is known as Regulation 4 and relates to the duty to manage asbestos (asbestos surveys).

This regulation applies to all non-domestic premises and certain parts of domestic premises, and places legal duty on the ‘duty holder’ to take active steps to identify, manage and monitor asbestos materials in their building.

For the record, if you refer to the Approved Code of Practice 127 you’ll find what the term ‘duty holder’ refers to. It includes employers and self-employed people if they have the responsibility of maintaining non-domestic premises. Basically if you are in control of the maintenance of a non-domestic premises the term applies to you.

And this is where asbestos surveys come in to play. As a duty holder you must carry out inspections of the non-domestic premises, and an independant specialist is recommended for this work. The information coming from this inspection needs to be recorded on a register and be maintained on site for the life of the building. It also needs to be made available to any visiting contractor to prevent accidental exposure.

The types of surveys carried out are refered to in the guidance “MDHS 100 Surveying sampling and assessment of asbestos containing materials”. These are:-

Location and assessment survey

This is a presumptive survey. Its aim is to find the presence of suspect asbestos materials in the building and assess their situation/impact.

Standard sampling

This is an identification and assessment survey. This builds on the location and assessment survey with samples being taken and analysed to see if they contain asbsestos or not. Sometimes this is done at the same time as the survey takes place, but for larger jobs it can be done at a later time.

Full access and identification survey

This is a pre-demolition and major refurbishment survey. This survey takes place to locate and portray all material that contains asbestos in a building. A full sampling program is undertaken to identify how much asbestos is in the building and how many areas are affected. This survey is done as the basis of removal of affected materials from the building prior to a demolition or a major refurbishment taking place.

For more information on asbestos surveys and how to remove asbestos from your premises please browse the other articles on our site at http://www.removing-asbestos.com/.