Finding asbestos on electrical jobs — Asbestos Awareness Practice

Sample questions

1. 01Under regulation 5 of CAR 2012, who must find out whether asbestos is present, or presume it is, before work that could disturb it?

   • AThe surveyor who last carried out a survey of the building
   • BThe council’s environmental health officer for the area
   • CThe firm that made the building materials in the first place
   • DThe employer whose workers are going to carry out the job

   Why: Regulation 5 puts the duty on the employer doing the work, before the job starts, in any premises, houses included. The surveyor is tempting because surveys feed the answer, but a past survey is only one source of information; the duty to find out or presume stays with the employer sending people to do the work.

2. 02An occupied office building needs a survey to support managing its asbestos during normal use. Which survey does HSG264 describe as the standard survey for this?

   • AA management survey of the whole site
   • BAn airborne fibre count across the building
   • CA Type 1 presumptive survey of the building
   • DA demolition survey of the whole building

   Why: HSG264 calls the management survey the standard survey: it locates suspect materials that normal occupation and foreseeable maintenance could disturb, and assesses their condition. A demolition survey is for work that opens up or takes down the building. “Type 1” is an old name from older HSE guidance (MDHS100) that HSG264 replaced, and is out of date, and an air test is not a survey.

3. 03A client wants a refurbishment survey of an office floor done while staff carry on working at their desks around the surveyor. What does HSG264 say?

   • AIt must be done at night by a licensed asbestos removal contractor
   • BIt is intrusive, so it should be done in areas empty of people
   • CIt is fine, because the survey only looks above the ceiling tiles
   • DIt is fine, provided the staff have all been told it is happening

   Why: A refurbishment and demolition survey is fully intrusive and destructive where necessary: tiles lifted, walls and ceilings broken into, floors opened up. HSG264 says it should only be done in areas that are empty of people. Telling staff does not protect them, it is not limited to ceiling voids, and there is no rule that a licensed removal contractor must do it.