What a company charges, what your council charges to take it away, and what the Health and Safety Executive says you should leave alone. Sources opened by me on 20 September 2026; no contractor behind this page and no lead selling.
An asbestos survey costs £200 to £1,000 according to Checkatrade and around £325 according to MyJobQuote. Sealing the material in costs about £30 to £33 per square metre, and both guides agree on that. Removal is where they part: a single garage roof runs £400 to £900 and a whole asbestos roof £950 to £3,750, while taking down an artex ceiling with asbestos in it is priced anywhere from £250 to £6,000 a room. There is no official price. What is official: some materials may only be removed by a contractor licensed by the Health and Safety Executive, all of it is hazardous waste, and your council tells you where it can go.
Three materials should only be removed by a contractor licensed by HSE: sprayed asbestos coatings, asbestos lagging / insulation and asbestos insulating board. That comes from the HSE guidance for members of the public; the rule behind it is regulation 8 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012. Did this come up in a house survey? What happens after a house survey shows how to turn a finding into a figure before you commit.
Checkatrade: table last updated April 2026. MyJobQuote: 9 and 14 September 2026. Neither says whether VAT is included. Both sell leads to tradespeople; they serve here as measurements only.
There is no official price for asbestos work, so two price guides are what there is. They agree on sealing and roughly on a survey. On removal they look far apart until you read what each one measured: Checkatrade's £175 to £350 per square metre is for ceilings and tiles indoors, MyJobQuote's £60 is for roof sheets outdoors. For the artex ceiling they simply disagree, which is a reason to get more than one quote and to put each one through the quote check.
Three councils as examples, each from its own page. Your council sets its own rules and prices; some take nothing at all.
Find your own council through Asbestos in your home on GOV.UK, a postcode search for England and Wales. How it has to be packed is the same everywhere (HSE): double wrapped and labelled, whole cement sheets not broken up but wrapped in polythene sheeting of 1000 gauge, and handled only by a licensed disposal site.
How long removal takes, whether you can stay in the house and when a room is safe again: I found no official source for those, and a price guide is not good enough for a health question. Ask the contractor to put it in writing, and ask your council's environmental health officer if in doubt; HSE points to them too. If the asbestos sits in a bigger job, the cost calculator prices the renovation around it, and the contingency guide explains how much buffer to keep for what a building hides until it is opened up.
The Health and Safety Executive says: do not try to repair or remove any asbestos materials yourself if you have not had any training for non-licensed asbestos work, and it strongly encourages the use of trained professionals. Three materials should only be removed by a contractor licensed by HSE: sprayed asbestos coatings, asbestos lagging / insulation and asbestos insulating board. The licensing rule itself, regulation 8 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, binds the employer doing the work. For cement-bonded asbestos, such as garage roof sheets, several councils run a scheme for householders who took it down themselves, which tells you it happens; it does not make it a good idea without knowing what you are doing.
Through your council. Asbestos has to be disposed of as hazardous waste and must not go in with normal household waste (HSE). GOV.UK has a postcode search, for England and Wales only, that sends you to your own council's page on asbestos and its disposal. What you find there differs a lot: Hampshire takes cement-bonded sheets at five recycling centres, West Northamptonshire at one transfer station after a phone call, and Somerset collects from your home.
Only if your council says so, and then almost always only cement-bonded asbestos, wrapped, and after booking. Hampshire accepts it at five sites, no sheet larger than 1200mm by 600mm, and charges £12.00 per sheet above the free household allowance. West Northamptonshire does not take it at any recycling centre, only at its waste transfer station. Check your own council before you load the car.
It depends on the material, and the two guides I read measure different things. Checkatrade puts domestic removal of artex ceilings and asbestos tiles at £175 to £350 per square metre. MyJobQuote puts removal at £60 per square metre in a guide about roof sheets. Sealing it in instead is about £30 to £33 per square metre in both.
Checkatrade prices removing an artex ceiling that contains asbestos in a 20 square metre room at £2,750 to £6,000, and tells you to budget an extra 30% to put the room back together. MyJobQuote expects around £1,500, within a range of £250 to £2,000. Both guides tell you to have the ceiling tested before any work is done to it.
Work that only a contractor holding an HSE licence may do. Regulation 8(1) of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 reads: "An employer must hold a licence granted under paragraph (2) before undertaking any licensable work with asbestos." For a home, HSE names the materials this comes down to: sprayed asbestos coatings, asbestos lagging / insulation and asbestos insulating board.