The most expensive thing you can do to a Super Six roof is clean it. A weekend with a pressure washer turns a stable sheet of asbestos cement into fibre loaded slurry in your gutters, your garden beds and the stormwater drain, and the clean up that follows costs more than the asbestos roof removal you were trying to put off. The same goes for an angle grinder, a hole saw and a stiff broom.
If the grey corrugated roofing on your house, garage or carport has been there since before the late 1980s, assume it is asbestos cement until a laboratory says otherwise. Here is what that means for the job, and what the rules in Victoria actually say.
What Super Six is, and how to tell you have it
Super Six is the name that stuck to the deep corrugated asbestos cement roof sheeting used across Australian housing. In Geelong you see it on house roofs, detached garages, carports, verandahs and almost every backyard shed of a certain age. It is usually fixed through the crown of the corrugation, which is why it comes off in whole sheets rather than being broken up.
Asbestos cement was standard in Australian residential building from the mid 1940s until the late 1980s, and the total ban on manufacture, supply, use and sale of all forms of asbestos came into force on 31 December 2003. The Victorian Government’s own line is that homes built in Australia until 1990 routinely used asbestos products, and that asbestos is estimated to still be present in one in three homes nationally. There is no separate Geelong figure, so read it as a national one.
Local history is why it turns up here so often. The Housing Commission’s Norlane program peaked between 1951 and 1957 and ran to 2,464 houses by 1976, and Corio gained five estates of about 2,500 houses from the late 1950s. They went up for workers at Ford, International Harvester, the Shell refinery and later Alcoa Point Henry, inside exactly the window when asbestos cement was the default.
You cannot identify it by eye, and neither can a builder or a roof plumber. A sample analysed at a NATA accredited laboratory costs $88 to $160, with results in one to five business days and a surcharge of 25 to 50 per cent for 24 to 48 hour turnaround. Most houses need three to eight samples, because every different material is tested separately: a roof sheet, an eaves lining and a shed wall are three samples, not one.
Get it tested before you touch it. Call now or send us a photo and we will put you in touch with a licensed removalist for a quote. There is more in our guide to how asbestos testing works in Victoria and on the asbestos testing page.
Five things that turn a sound roof into a contaminated site
Asbestos cement is stable while the cement binding the fibres stays intact. Nearly every ordinary way of cleaning, fixing or working around a roof breaks that binding.
Pressure washing is the worst of them. It strips the weathered top layer off the sheet and carries it into the gutters, the downpipes and the soil, so one roof becomes a contaminated yard.
Walking on it is next. Old sheets go brittle, and weathering, moss and lichen make it worse. People fall through Super Six roofs, and the fall is the immediate danger long before the fibres.
Then there is drilling and cutting. Every solar install, aerial mount, skylight, whirlybird and roof plumbing repair is a hole through asbestos cement waiting to happen. If you are getting quotes for anything on that roof, tell the trade what the sheeting is first.
Dry sweeping and hosing out get overlooked, because the debris under the sheets and in the gutters is easy to forget. Sweeping puts it in the air. Hosing puts it in the garden.
Last one: broken sheets left lying in the yard or buried out the back. Crumbling asbestos cement can become friable, and friable material is Class A work that needs a licensed removalist no matter how little of it there is. Our explainer on friable and non friable asbestos covers where that line sits. Fire damaged sheeting is the same: if a shed has burnt or a roof has been crushed, keep people away and get advice before anything is moved.
What asbestos roof removal costs in Victoria
Nobody publishes a Geelong price for this. Every figure below comes from Melbourne suppliers’ rate cards and guides, and two of those suppliers price regional work separately, so read them as Melbourne metro benchmarks rather than a quote for your roof. Prices are indicative and GST treatment varies between providers, so ask each removalist whether their quote includes GST.
| Item | Published Victorian range | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Roof sheeting, per square metre | $40 to $120 | Pitch, height, condition |
| Typical house roof | $4,000 to $15,000 | Area and storeys |
| Typical garage or small roof | $3,500 to $5,500 | Whether walls go too |
| Single garage, whole structure | $2,500 to $5,000 | Slab left in place |
| Double garage, whole structure | $4,000 to $8,000 | Slab left in place |
| Backyard shed | $1,300 to $3,000 | Size and contents |
| Full set of eaves | $1,500 to $2,500 | Perimeter and access |
| Concrete slab removal, if wanted | $60 to $180 per square metre | Thickness, truck access |
| Minimum job charge | $800 to $1,500 | Four sheets or forty |
| Clearance certificate | $165 to $250 | Independent third party |
| Lab test, per sample | $88 to $160 | Volume discounts vary |
Those bands read differently against an actual roof.
A Super Six garage roof in Corio that has started to crack along the corrugations is a small area and still not a small invoice. A single garage sits in the $2,500 to $5,000 band, and a garage or small roof generally lands between $3,500 and $5,500. Even a four sheet repair runs into the $800 to $1,500 minimum job charge, which is the honest reason a small patch is never a few hundred dollars.
A whole house roof on a 1960s place in Norlane or Belmont is the $4,000 to $15,000 job, with the clearance certificate a separate $165 to $250 line on top, and a five day wait before anyone starts.
A shed at the back of a Colac property that the new owner wants gone sits in the $1,300 to $3,000 band, but out there the harder problem is disposal rather than price. Our asbestos removal cost guide works through the rest of the numbers.
Send a photo of the roof and the eaves and we will put you in touch with removalists who quote in your area. Call now or use the enquiry form.
Encapsulation, removal, and who puts the new roof on
Encapsulation means sealing the sheets with a coating so the surface stops shedding. It is a genuine approach, and it suits roofs where the sheeting is still sound and the owner is not ready to replace it.
Two things are worth knowing before you price it. The asbestos is still there afterwards, so anyone who works on that roof later still has to treat it as asbestos, and it still has to come off one day. And the surface preparation a coating needs is exactly the sort of abrasion that releases fibres, so ask how the surface will be prepared before agreeing to anything.
Removal is the option that ends the problem. What goes back in its place is a different matter, and worth being blunt about: the replacement roof is domestic building work and needs a registered builder. We do not quote, price or offer re-roofing, re-cladding or making good, and we publish no combined removal and replacement figure, because that would be a price for building work.
So get the removal quoted on its own, then get the new roof quoted separately by a registered builder or roofing contractor. Two trades, two contracts, both of them yours.
What asbestos roof removal looks like on the day
The job starts before anyone arrives. A licensed removalist has to notify WorkSafe Victoria first: at least 24 hours before work covering 10 square metres or less of non friable material, and at least five days before anything larger. A house roof is always in the second group, which is the real answer to why nobody can start tomorrow.
Almost all residential roof sheeting is non friable, which makes it Class B removal work. Class A covers friable material and everything a Class B can. Every removalist we put you in touch with holds a current WorkSafe Victoria licence, and the number is printed on the quote, so check it is there.
On the day, the method is the opposite of how a roof normally comes off. Sheets stay whole, fixings are worked rather than snapped, material is wet down instead of cut, and everything is stacked and wrapped rather than dropped. Packaging follows Asbestos Victoria: polythene around 200 micron, sealed with tape, with the asbestos warning mark on every package before it moves. Asbestos Victoria’s homeowner removal guidance sets out the same rules a removalist works to.
Access is a site conditions call, not something anyone can price from a photo. A steep pitch, a two storey section, sheeting too brittle to bear weight or a garage wedged on a boundary all change the method, and edge protection or scaffolding may be needed first. Ask what the quote assumes about access, and what it covers in the gutters and the roof cavity.
A clearance certificate is required once Class B removal passes 10 square metres in total, which any roof does. On a domestic job where you engaged the licence holder, the duty to obtain it sits with the removalist rather than you, and it has to come from an independent person with no financial interest in the work. That is why it is a separate line. Air monitoring is a Class A requirement rather than a routine part of a roof strip, so ask about any quote that bundles it in. Our note on clearance certificates and air monitoring has the detail.
Where the sheets go, and why Surf Coast and Colac owners have one option
Asbestos waste is classified as reportable priority waste in Victoria, and it may only go to a landfill authorised to receive it. EPA Victoria’s register of those landfills, updated on 22 June 2026, lists 26 sites statewide.
Exactly one is in the Barwon region: Drysdale Landfill, run by the City of Greater Geelong under EPA licence OL000072476. It takes small domestic quantities only, capped at a six by four trailer load, and both the EPA and Golden Plains Shire tell residents to ring before turning up. The number is (03) 5251 2935. Fees apply, but no dollar figure for Drysdale is published anywhere we could verify, so ring and ask. Other Victorian councils publish asbestos gate fees of $100 to $376 per tonne, and none of those councils is Geelong.
That matters most outside Greater Geelong. Surf Coast Shire states plainly that asbestos roofing sheets and building products are not accepted at any of its transfer stations: not Torquay, not Anglesea, not Winchelsea, not Lorne. Colac Otway Shire publishes no asbestos disposal option at all. For those owners, the nearest facility on the EPA register is over on the Bellarine.
On a licensed job none of this is your problem, because the removalist takes the waste and the disposal sits inside the quote. It only matters if you handle something small yourself, and then read EPA Victoria’s disposal guidance before you load a trailer. Our asbestos disposal page and the piece on where asbestos can legally go in the Barwon region cover the packaging and labelling rules.
If broken sheets are already sitting in your yard, do not move them twice. Call now and we will put you in touch with a licensed removalist who can quote the clean up and the disposal together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I take the Super Six off my own shed?
The 10 square metre limit and the one hour in any seven days limit are what the law sets for anyone doing asbestos removal as work, and a shed or garage roof is well past both. Those regulations do not technically bind you at your own home, because a home is not a workplace, but WorkSafe recommends homeowners follow the same code anyway. The moment a tradesperson, a tenant, a rental property or a paid helper is involved, the caps become law. Our guide to DIY asbestos removal in Victoria has the detail.
Is it safe to walk on an asbestos cement roof?
No, and the fall is the more immediate risk. Asbestos cement goes brittle with age, and weathering, moss and lichen hide how far gone a sheet is. For a quote, a licensed removalist assesses it from a ladder, a platform or the ground rather than standing on the sheeting.
Do I need a clearance certificate for a roof removal?
Yes. A clearance certificate is required once Class B removal exceeds 10 square metres in total, and any roof does. On a domestic job where you engaged the licensed removalist, the duty to obtain it sits with the removalist rather than with you, and it has to be issued by an independent person with no financial interest in the work. Expect it as a separate $165 to $250 line on the quote.
Can I paint or seal the roof instead of removing it?
Sealing a sound roof is a real option, but it is not a fix. The material stays on the property, anyone who works on that roof later still has to treat it as asbestos, and the surface preparation a coating needs is the same abrasion that releases fibres. We do not offer or price coating, re-roofing or replacement work, so ask a registered builder about those.