A Case study of how a roof leak ending up costing $250,000.00 and left a family homeless!
We attended a family home after a huge storm when an asbestos roof leaked, and the family home was pretty much flooded. This house had an asbestos roof and our company policy is if the roof leak is from an asbestos roof we have to get the interior of the home assessed by a qualified asbestos assessor. Her investigation revealed the entire home was now contaminated with asbestos and was uninhabitable. The owners were now forced to relocate until remediation works could take place, and that all they had left from their family home was the clothes on their backs, they were left with nothing.
Asbestos roofs are continually releasing asbestos fibres into the atmosphere, especially if they are unsealed. Most of this is blown away by the wind. What most people don’t realise is that when the asbestos roof was first installed by the roofers, hundreds of holes were drilled into the asbestos roof sheets to screw it to the roof battens. Most of this would have just fallen to the floor as the ceiling would not have been installed until the roof was laid. However, much of this was left on the roof battens and is still in the ceiling space of many homes. Asbestos roofs are also overlapped together to create a waterproof seal. When a building moves with the forces of high winds in storms, more deadly fibers are released.
The entire contents of the home were contaminated beyond salvage and had to be disposed of as asbestos waste. Everything clothing, couches, Tv, appliances, carpets, family photos, even the artwork hanging on the walls all that was left when we finished was an empty home.
The owners were so shocked that they decided to have the whole home stripped of all asbestos, including the roof, guttering, eaves, wall and ceiling linings, a total strip out costing tens of thousands of dollars, leaving them with a shell of a house. This house is their family home; their kids had grown up here; they had friends in the street. Relocating was not an option. They decide that they never wanted to have to worry about asbestos again in their family home. It took a few months to finish the get the house back together but being able to live where you love and not having to be worried about asbestos was 100% worth it for them. In a way, the roof leak was a blessing in disguise. All be it an expensive one. Insurance covered a lot of the financial costs of the storm created damage, but the material possessions are gone forever.
All this could have been avoided if people get their asbestos roof removed before things get out of hand. If you need help or advice on what to do about your asbestos roof, call the office today we are ready to take your calls.