You’ve found grey-brown sheeting behind the shed, or a fence panel that’s started to crumble at one edge, and now you’re standing there trying to work out what it actually is. Here’s the part almost nobody expects: there are three types of asbestos that were used in Australian homes, and none of them can be told apart by eye. A lab test starts from around $88 a sample. Guessing wrong and disturbing the material first can cost far more than that, and not only in money.
This matters more in Geelong than in most parts of Victoria. The suburbs north of the CBD, Norlane and Corio especially, were built as Housing Commission estates, much of it for workers at Ford, International Harvester and a phosphate works, right inside the decades when asbestos cement was the standard building material. If your house, fence or garage dates from that era, or really any time up to 1990, the sensible starting assumption is that it might contain asbestos until a test says otherwise.
The three types of asbestos used in Australian homes
Australia used three types of asbestos: white, blue and brown. Asbestos Victoria explains it plainly: up to 90 per cent of the asbestos produced in or imported into Australia went into building products. White asbestos, known scientifically as chrysotile, is the type most associated with the asbestos cement sheeting that went into fences, roofs, eaves and wall cladding, with blue asbestos (crocidolite) and brown asbestos (amosite) also used.
It’s a common assumption that blue and brown asbestos only ever ended up in specialist industrial products, but that’s not quite right. Australia’s own asbestos product history records that crocidolite, supplied out of the CSR mine at Wittenoom in Western Australia until it closed in 1966, was used alongside chrysotile in asbestos cement manufacturing, not only in insulation work. Amosite followed a similar pattern, turning up in cement products as well as pipe lagging and thermal insulation. That detail alone is a good reason not to assume a cement sheet must be the white type just because white was the most common one.
All three types were mined in Australia at various points, with Australian asbestos mining ending by 1983, though local mines only ever supplied a small share of what the country actually used. Most of it was imported.
The regulatory story runs on two different timelines, and it’s worth knowing which one applies to what you’ve found. Blue and brown asbestos were both banned in Australia in the mid-1980s. White asbestos manufacture and import continued for another two decades, and the total ban on every form of asbestos, in every use, came into force on 31 December 2003. If your home, fence or shed went up any time before that date, any of the three types could still be present.
If you’re standing in front of a fence, a roof sheet or an old garage wall right now and just want to know what you’re actually dealing with before you touch anything else, that’s the one thing worth doing first. Call (03) 5550 4817 and we’ll talk through how many samples a job like yours typically needs, or book a test before you touch it.
Why colour will not tell you which type you have
This is the part that trips people up, because it feels like it should work. Blue-grey sheeting must be blue asbestos, brownish staining must be brown asbestos, and anything else is presumably the white kind. In practice, it doesn’t work that way at all.
Weathering, old paint, decades of grime and the specific mix used in a given batch all change how a sheet actually looks by the time you’re standing in front of it. Asbestos Victoria’s own guidance is direct on this point: careful examination of a sample under specialised microscopic procedures, at an accredited laboratory, is the only way to conclusively determine whether a material contains asbestos, let alone which type. Visual inspection, colour included, cannot do that job, and a homeowner squinting at a fence panel is in exactly the same position as anyone else.
There’s a second reason colour is the wrong question, and it matters more than the first. What actually changes how a job is regulated and priced in Victoria isn’t which of the three types you have. It’s whether the material is friable or non-friable, a distinction about the physical condition of the material rather than its colour or its mineral name. A fence sheet and a piece of old pipe lagging can both be genuine asbestos, and both be any of the three types, yet be treated completely differently once someone actually starts work on them. That split is important enough to have its own detailed explanation rather than a paragraph here.
Where each type actually shows up around a Geelong property
In practice, if you own a Geelong-area property built or renovated before the early 1990s, most of what you’ll run into is asbestos cement, the fibro that went into fences, eaves, garage and shed walls, and corrugated roofing sheets. That’s the non-friable, bonded end of things, where fibres are locked into a hard cement matrix, and it’s the form most homeowners in this region actually deal with.
Friable material, the soft or crumbly kind where fibres can release more easily, is less common in an ordinary house but does turn up in specific spots: old pipe lagging around a hot water system, some ceiling and wall insulation, and any sheeting that has been crushed, water-damaged or is genuinely starting to break down rather than just look tired. A full room-by-room picture of where asbestos tends to hide in an older Geelong house is a bigger topic than fits here, and it’s covered on its own.
Whichever type or form you’ve got, none of it announces itself by colour. A weathered grey fence sheet from the 1960s and a similarly weathered sheet from the 1980s can be entirely different fibres underneath, with no way to tell which without a sample going to a lab.
Three typical fences and roofs, and what testing settles
A few examples make the point better than the theory does on its own. None of these are real jobs, real addresses or real customers. They’re the kind of situation that comes up again and again around the Barwon region.
A 1960s fibro fence line along the back boundary in Norlane. Say a storm cracks two panels, and before doing anything else the owner wants to know whether the whole fence needs to come out or just the damaged sections. Testing a couple of samples from different sections of the fence (lab tests run $88 to $160 each, and most residential jobs need three to eight samples, because every different material has to be tested separately) is what answers that. A full fence removal in Victoria typically runs $1,000 to $3,500 as a Melbourne-metro benchmark, though a small patch job still attracts the minimum job charge most removalists apply, generally $800 to $1,500, because there’s a floor to what any call-out costs regardless of how small the job looks.
A Super Six garage roof in Corio that had started to crack. An owner might assume the rust-brown staining on some sheets means a different, more concerning type of asbestos than the plain grey sheets elsewhere on the same roof. Colour tells you nothing reliable either way, and only testing can confirm what is actually up there. Garage and small roof removal runs $3,500 to $5,500 on a national cost guide, or $40 to $120 per square metre for larger roofs, with the actual figure depending on access, pitch and how the sheeting has to be bagged and carried down.
Eaves on a 1970s brick veneer in Belmont, found mid-kitchen-renovation. A builder who stops work as soon as the eaves lining looks suspect has the right instinct every time. A full set of eaves removal sits at $1,500 to $2,500 as a Melbourne-metro benchmark, and again the $800 to $1,500 minimum job charge applies if it turns out to be a smaller section than a full set.
All figures above are indicative Melbourne-metro benchmarks. There is no published Geelong-specific asbestos removal pricing anywhere, and GST treatment varies between providers, so ask each removalist whether their quote includes GST. See the full cost breakdown for more detail on how these ranges are put together.
Once you’ve got a result back and know roughly what you’re dealing with, get a quote from a licensed removalist rather than guessing at scope from the test report alone. Quantity, access and condition all move the price, and a removalist looking at the actual site is the only way to get a real number.
The three types, side by side
| Common name | Fibre (mineral) name | Where it mainly turned up | When it was banned in Australia |
|---|---|---|---|
| White asbestos | Chrysotile | The large majority of asbestos cement sheeting: fences, roofs, eaves, wall cladding | Manufacture and import banned December 2003; total ban on every form from 31 December 2003 |
| Brown asbestos | Amosite | Some cement products, plus pipe lagging and thermal insulation | Mid-1980s |
| Blue asbestos | Crocidolite | Some cement products, plus insulation work; mined at Wittenoom in WA until the mine closed in 1966 | Mid-1980s |
Nothing in that table can be read off a sheet by eye on a Saturday afternoon. It’s background for understanding what a material might be, not a substitute for a test result.
Friable versus non-friable is the split that actually matters
Once you know a material genuinely is asbestos, the next real question in Victoria isn’t which of the three types it is. It’s whether it’s friable or non-friable, because that distinction decides the licence class needed to remove it, and what a homeowner is actually able to do without one.
Non-friable material, like intact fibro sheeting, has some limited scope for a homeowner to handle a small amount of it themselves at their own home, under conditions that are easy to misunderstand. Friable material never has that scope, and always needs a Class A licensed removalist regardless of quantity. The full explanation of that DIY question, including where the limits genuinely sit and why so much content online gets it wrong, is worth reading properly before anyone picks up a crowbar rather than a phone.
The only way to know for sure
Colour, texture, how old the material looks, whether it reads as grey or brownish or has a particular pattern, none of it settles the question on its own. The only thing that does is a sample going to a NATA-accredited laboratory. The process itself is straightforward: a small sample is taken, bagged and sent off, and results generally come back within one to five business days, with a surcharge for faster turnaround if you need it sooner.
If you’ve found something that might be asbestos and you’re not sure what to do with that information, send us a photo and we will put you in touch with a licensed removalist who can look at what you’ve actually got. If you’d rather start with the phone, (03) 5550 4817 works just as well, and either way the honest first step is finding out what you’re dealing with, not guessing from the colour.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I tell what type of asbestos I have just by looking at it?
No. Weathering, paint, dirt and the specific mix used in a batch all change how a material looks, so colour is not a reliable guide to which of the three types you have, or even whether it’s asbestos at all. The only way to know is a sample tested at an accredited laboratory.
Is one type of asbestos more dangerous than the others?
That’s a health question, and this isn’t the right place to weigh it. What actually changes how a job is regulated in Victoria is whether the material is friable or non-friable, not which of the three types it is. For health-specific questions, Asbestos Victoria’s own pages and your GP are the right starting point.
Does a grey fibro fence or roof definitely mean it’s asbestos?
Not necessarily, but it’s not something to rule out either. Fibro is the local word for asbestos cement sheeting, and a lot of old grey cement sheeting genuinely is asbestos, though some non-asbestos cement sheeting can look similar from a distance. If the material was installed before the early 1990s, treat asbestos as a reasonable working assumption until a test confirms it either way.
What type of asbestos is most common in Geelong homes?
There’s no published figure specific to Geelong or the Barwon region, so nothing here is a local statistic. Nationally, up to 90 per cent of the asbestos produced in or imported into Australia went into building products, mostly the asbestos cement sheeting used for fences, roofs and wall cladding, which lines up with what tends to turn up in this region’s older homes and fences too.