Expert Painters

Asbestos in Older Melbourne Homes: What Must Happen Before Painting

30 Oct

If your house was built before 1990, the painter you hire should be asking about asbestos before they bring out a sander. Most do not, and that is the problem.

Asbestos products were used in Australian housing until around 1990, and a total ban came into force at the end of 2003. Anything built before the late 1980s is likely to contain some. The material itself is not dangerous while it is intact and undisturbed. Preparation for painting is exactly the activity that disturbs it.

This is not a reason to panic about your house. It is a reason to know what you have before work starts.

Where it usually is in a Melbourne home

The places a painter is most likely to meet it:

  • Eaves and soffit linings, which is the single most common one, and precisely the surface people want repainted
  • Flat or corrugated fibro cladding, including infill panels and gable ends
  • Bathroom, laundry and kitchen wall sheeting behind tiles or lining boards
  • Fences, sheds and garage walls
  • Roof sheeting on older outbuildings
  • Backing material under old vinyl flooring, and some textured ceiling coatings

An old eaves lining looks like any other sheet once it has been painted a few times. You cannot identify asbestos by looking at it, and neither can we. That is the whole difficulty.

The rule that matters

Intact, sealed, non-friable asbestos sheeting is generally safe to leave in place and can be painted. Painting it is a form of encapsulation and is often the recommended outcome.

What causes harm is making dust. So the following must not happen on a surface that may contain asbestos:

  • Sanding, grinding or wire-brushing
  • High-pressure water blasting
  • Drilling, cutting or screwing into it
  • Scraping back flaking paint aggressively
  • Dry sweeping or using a domestic vacuum on the debris

A painter who turns up and immediately water-blasts the eaves of a 1960s house has done something genuinely dangerous, and it is a common shortcut.

What the Victorian rules actually say

Under the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017, unlicensed removal of non-friable asbestos is limited to 10 square metres in total and no more than one hour in any seven days, counted across everyone doing the work. Friable asbestos, the crumbly kind, is not covered by that exemption at all and requires a licensed removalist.

The Victorian regulator describes unlicensed removal as generally not recommended even where it is technically permitted, and for a homeowner that advice is worth taking at face value. Waste has to go to an EPA Victoria authorised site, in sealed and labelled containers.

Removal is not painting work. We do not remove asbestos, and a painter offering to “just take the old sheets off while we are here” is not someone to hire.

How to find out what you have

There is one reliable method: a sample analysed by a NATA-accredited laboratory. An occupational hygienist or licensed assessor takes it safely. It is inexpensive relative to a repaint and it settles the question.

If the house is pre-1990 and the eaves, cladding or wet-area sheeting are being prepared, testing first is the sensible order. Finding out afterwards is worse in every way.

For anything that looks damaged, crumbling or water-affected, stop and get advice before touching it at all. Victoria publishes guidance at asbestos.vic.gov.au and WorkSafe Victoria regulates the removal work.

What a repaint looks like when asbestos is confirmed and intact

It is still a job we can do, and it usually looks like this:

  • No abrasive preparation of any kind on the asbestos surfaces
  • Gentle wet cleaning by hand to remove dirt and loose surface chalk, with low pressure only
  • Loose flaking paint dealt with by wet methods, not dry scraping
  • A suitable sealer or binding primer, then a flexible exterior coating that re-encapsulates the sheet
  • Fixings left alone, with no new holes drilled
  • Any waste handled wet and bagged rather than swept

Done this way, the sheet is better protected afterwards than it was before, which is the point of encapsulation.

Where the budget usually goes wrong

Two scenarios catch people out.

The first is discovering it mid-job. Work stops, the scope changes and the timeline moves. Testing beforehand costs a fraction of that disruption.

The second is a quote that is cheaper than everyone else on a pre-1990 house with fibro eaves. Sometimes that quote is cheaper because the preparation that makes it safe has not been allowed for. It is worth asking directly how the eaves will be prepared and what happens if asbestos is found.

Questions worth asking any painter

  • Has the age of the house been considered, and have you flagged any material you would want tested?
  • How will you prepare the eaves and any sheet cladding, specifically?
  • What happens to the quote and the schedule if asbestos is confirmed?
  • Do you use wet methods and avoid abrasive preparation on those surfaces?

If a painter has no view on this at all on a house built in 1965, that tells you something about the rest of their preparation too.

What we do

  • Flag likely asbestos-containing materials before quoting on pre-1990 homes
  • Recommend testing where the surfaces to be prepared are suspect
  • Paint intact, non-friable sheeting using wet, non-abrasive methods and appropriate sealers
  • Work alongside a licensed removalist where removal is the right answer, rather than attempting it ourselves
  • Leave the material better sealed than we found it

We are based in Richmond and work across Melbourne, the bayside suburbs and coastal Victoria, much of it on homes old enough for this to matter. Our guide to lead paint in Melbourne homes covers the other hazard that comes with the same era.

Call 0404 330 332. Tell us roughly when the house was built and we will tell you what needs checking before anything starts.

This article is general information about painting practice, not safety or legal advice. For authoritative guidance, see asbestos.vic.gov.au and WorkSafe Victoria.

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