A cracked sheet on a garage roof and half a metre of crumbling lagging on an old pipe can sit ten steps apart in the same backyard. A licensed removalist will price one as an ordinary job with a 24 hour notice to WorkSafe. The other is Class A work at any quantity, with a five day notice and a clearance certificate at the end of it. Friable asbestos is why those two jobs are not the same job.
Most people meet the words friable and non-friable on a lab report and assume they are jargon. They are not. In Victoria that one word sets the licence class, whether any unlicensed exemption exists, and whether air monitoring happens.
What “friable” actually means when you are standing in front of it
Both kinds contain the same fibres. The difference is physical: how easily the material lets those fibres go.
Friable material is in powder form, or it can be crumbled or reduced to powder by hand pressure when it is dry. Non-friable material, which nearly everyone around Geelong just calls fibro or bonded sheeting, has its fibres locked into cement, vinyl or resin.
That matters because asbestos fibres only do harm once they are airborne. Bonded sheeting left alone releases very little. Powdery material releases fibres with the lightest handling, which is why the regulations treat it as a different problem entirely.
Here is the part most asbestos content gets wrong. The category is not fixed for life. A sheet that was bonded when it went up in 1962 can be friable today: fire damage does it, so does an angle grinder, a water blaster, decades of weather on unpainted sheet, or a sheet snapped and left in a garden bed. Condition is the question, and it gets judged on site, not from the year the house was built.
None of that makes intact sheeting an emergency. Sound bonded material that nobody is cutting, drilling or walking on is usually the least urgent thing on the property.
If you cannot tell what you are looking at, that is the normal position, not an embarrassing one. Call now, or send us a photo and we will explain how sampling works and put you in touch with a licensed removalist if the result is positive. Get it tested before you touch it: a lab result is the only thing that settles the question.
Where the line falls in a Geelong house
Almost every residential job in this region is non-friable. Fibro cladding, flat sheet fences, Super Six roofing, eaves linings, shed and garage sheeting and plenty of old bathroom wall sheet sit on the bonded side. That is Class B work.
Friable material is less common in houses but it is not rare. Lagging on old pipes and flues, some older insulation, sheeting that has been through a fire, sheeting that has crumbled, and asbestos contaminated dust sit on the Class A side.
Asbestos cement was standard in Australian housing from the mid 1940s until the late 1980s, and the total ban came into force on 31 December 2003. Geelong’s northern suburbs went up inside that window: the Housing Commission program in Norlane peaked between 1951 and 1957 and reached 2,464 houses by 1976.
A Super Six garage roof in Corio that has started to crack is still non-friable, but cracked and weathered sheets are the ones that shed fibres when somebody walks on them or aims a pressure washer at them. Nobody should be water blasting, dry sweeping, drilling or standing on that roof. Melbourne metro benchmarks put a garage or small roof at $3,500 to $5,500.
Take a 1970s brick veneer in Belmont where a kitchen renovation has opened a wall cavity. If what comes out is lagging on an old flue rather than sheet, the job has crossed to the friable side, and less than a metre of it changes nothing.
Or vinyl floor tiles found under carpet in an Ocean Grove holiday house. The tiles are usually bonded, but the backing and adhesive underneath are a separate material nobody can call by eye. The lab tests them separately, which is why most houses need three to eight samples rather than one, at $88 to $160 each. Our asbestos testing page explains how that works.
Friable asbestos has no small job exemption
Victoria splits removal licences into two classes, and Asbestos Victoria states the split plainly. Class A holders may perform Class A and Class B work: friable asbestos and asbestos contaminated dust. Class B holders may only perform Class B work: non-friable asbestos and the dust that comes from removing it.
A Class A holder can do everything, a Class B holder cannot touch friable material, and no quantity of friable asbestos is small enough to fall outside the system. Half a metre of lagging is Class A work, the same as a whole basement of it.
The licence class also changes the notice. A licence holder has to notify WorkSafe before starting: at least 24 hours for removal work covering 10 square metres or less of non-friable material, and at least five days for any other removal work, friable included.
That duty sits on the licence holder, never on you, but it is the honest answer to why nobody starts tomorrow. Removal is carried out by licensed asbestos removalists we work with, whose WorkSafe Victoria licence number is on every quote.
The 10 square metre rule was only ever about non-friable material
The unlicensed limit in Victoria’s OHS Regulations is worth stating properly, because it gets repeated wrongly nearly everywhere.
The WorkSafe compliance code sets two caps that must both hold. The area of non-friable material removed cannot exceed 10 square metres in total, and the employer or self-employed person cannot perform more than one hour of asbestos removal work in total during any seven day period. The hour is cumulative across jobs, not one hour per job. Friable material is never covered by that exemption at all.
There is a catch in that wording. Those regulations bind employers and self-employed persons at workplaces. The compliance code says that where a person removes asbestos at domestic premises which is their own home, the Regulations do not apply, because a home is not a workplace, and it recommends the code be followed anyway.
So it is not accurate to say a homeowner breaks the law by taking down more than 10 square metres at their own house. What is accurate is this: that figure is the limit the law sets for anyone doing this as work, WorkSafe recommends homeowners follow the same code at home, and the caps become law the moment a tradesperson, tenant, rental property, business premises or paid helper is involved.
It also does not help much in the real world. A full fence line, a whole garage or a house roof is far past 10 square metres and far past an hour of work, and that is the genuine reason those jobs go to a licensed removalist. Our guide to removing asbestos yourself in Victoria covers the rest.
What friable work adds: air monitoring, clearance and double bagging
Once a job is Class A, three things appear that a fence or eaves job never sees.
The first is air monitoring. The Regulations do not require paraoccupational air monitoring for Class B work, so a routine fence removal does not get it. On Class A work where it is required, the check on completion must verify the airborne fibre level is below 0.01 fibres per millilitre, and at or above that level no clearance certificate can be issued until further decontamination happens.
The second is the clearance certificate. It is required after Class A or Class B removal work before the area is re-occupied, with one exception: work consisting only of non-friable material, 10 square metres or less. It has to come from an independent person: someone independent of the removalist and of whoever commissioned the work, with no pecuniary interest in it.
One part of that rule works in your favour. Where removal happens at a domestic property used solely for domestic purposes and you engaged the licence holder yourself, the duty to obtain the clearance certificate sits on them, not on you.
The third is packaging. Bonded sheeting is wrapped in polythene about 200 micron (0.2 mm) thick and sealed with tape. Friable material and dust go into double polythene bags of the same thickness, half full, with loaded weight under 30 kg. Every package carries the asbestos warning mark, roughly 75 mm x 90 mm.
| Non-friable (bonded) | Friable | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Fibres bound into cement, vinyl or resin | Powder, or crumbles to powder by hand when dry |
| Typical around Geelong | Fibro cladding, fences, Super Six roofing, eaves, sheds | Pipe and flue lagging, older insulation, crumbling sheet, dust |
| Licence class | Class B (Class A may also do it) | Class A only |
| Unlicensed exemption | Up to 10 sqm and under one hour in any seven days, both caps | None, at any quantity |
| WorkSafe notice | At least 24 hours for 10 sqm or less | At least five days |
| Air monitoring | Not required for Class B work | Required where the Regulations call for it |
| Clearance certificate | Not required if only non-friable and 10 sqm or less | Required, from an independent person |
| Packaging for the tip | Wrapped in 200 micron polythene, taped | Double bagged, half full, under 30 kg |
The tip is the same answer either way. EPA Victoria’s register of landfills licensed for asbestos waste has one entry in the whole Barwon region: Drysdale Landfill, run by the City of Greater Geelong, which takes small domestic quantities only, capped at a 6x4 trailer load. Ring them on (03) 5251 2935 first, because an authorised landfill can still decline a load.
Every transfer station in Surf Coast Shire refuses asbestos outright and Colac Otway Shire publishes no option at all, so a homeowner in Torquay, Lorne or Colac has one legal destination and it is on the Bellarine. Our disposal page and the Barwon region disposal guide have the wrapping and labelling rules.
What it costs, and why nobody publishes a friable price
There is no reliable published price split between friable and non-friable removal. The numbers floating around search results trace back to anonymous cost estimator sites, so any page quoting a friable multiplier is guessing.
Every figure below is a Melbourne metro benchmark, because there is no published Geelong or Barwon pricing anywhere, and two of those suppliers price regional work separately. They are indicative of the market, never a quote from us: only a licensed removalist who has seen the material can quote your job.
Testing is the cheap end. Samples run $88 to $160 each, a standard house usually needs three to eight, and turnaround is 1 to 5 business days, with a 25% to 50% surcharge for a 24 to 48 hour result. A house inspection with samples sits at $395 to $900.
Removal is where the minimum job charge bites, and at $800 to $1,500 it is the most useful number on this site. It is why a two sheet repair does not cost two sheets. Fence sheets are $20 to $50 each, but the minimum swallows a small count, so a whole fence at $1,000 to $3,500 is often better value per sheet.
Larger jobs follow the material. A typical house roof runs $4,000 to $15,000, a shed $1,300 to $3,000, a single garage $2,500 to $5,000, and general removal $45 to $150 per square metre. Our roof and shed removal page and the cost guide break those down.
Two lines are more likely on a Class A quote. A visual clearance certificate is around $165 to $250, and air monitoring, where required, runs $250 to $600 per day, both explained in our guide to clearance certificates and air monitoring. Prices are indicative and GST treatment varies between providers, so ask each removalist whether their quote includes GST.
If you are somewhere between “I think that is fibro” and “I think that is crumbling”, the order is the same. Get the material identified, then get a quote from a licensed removalist for whatever the report says it is. Call now or send us the details.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I tell if asbestos is friable without sending it to a lab?
You cannot be certain, and you should not try to find out by crumbling a piece in your hand. A laboratory identifies whether the material contains asbestos; friability is a judgement about its condition, made on site. If it looks powdery, water damaged, fire damaged or falling apart, treat it as friable and leave it alone.
Is friable asbestos more dangerous than non-friable?
It releases fibres far more easily, which is exactly what the licensing rules respond to. The fibres themselves are the same in both. Bonded sheeting in sound condition that nobody disturbs releases very little, and the risk arrives when it is cut, drilled, snapped, walked on or water blasted.
Can I remove a small amount of friable asbestos myself?
There is no exemption for friable material at any quantity, so as work it is always Class A. At your own home the OHS Regulations do not apply, because a home is not regarded as a workplace, but WorkSafe recommends homeowners follow the same compliance code, and the caps become law the moment a tradesperson, tenant, rental property or paid helper is involved. Friable material is the clearest case for a licensed removalist.
Does a friable job always need a clearance certificate?
Class A removal work requires a clearance certificate from an independent person before the area is re-occupied. The exemption only covers work that was non-friable and 10 square metres or less, so friable jobs are never caught by it. On a domestic property where you engaged the licence holder directly, the duty to obtain that certificate sits with the removalist, not with you.