Three quotes land. One is half the price of the other two. It is tempting to assume the expensive ones are padded — but in this trade the cheap one is usually not a quote for the same job. It is a quote for less work, fewer controls, or a disposal route that does not exist.
We are asked to price the same job twice more often than we would like: once at the start, and again after somebody else has been in. This is how to read a quote so the first one is the only one.
Why the cheapest number is usually the wrong one
A licensed asbestos contractor carries costs that do not go away because a job is small: trained and medically screened operatives, fit-tested RPE, enclosure materials, negative pressure units and Class H vacuums, a decontamination unit, an independent analyst, insurance, and licensed disposal with consignment notes for every load.
When a price comes in below what those inputs cost, something in that list is missing. Usually it is the controls, the analyst, or the tip.
The nine checks
1. Does the quote say what kind of work this is?
Work with asbestos falls into three categories: licensable work, notifiable non-licensed work (NNLW) and non-licensed work. The category drives the controls, the paperwork and the price. A quote that does not say which category the work falls into has not been thought about — and both non-licensed categories still have to comply with the Control of Asbestos Regulations.
2. Is the contractor licensed — and is the licence current?
Higher-risk work, including sprayed coatings and work that disturbs pipe lagging, must only be done by an HSE-licensed contractor. Ask for the licence number and the expiry date, in writing. HSE points clients to the CONIAC list of current licensed contractors, and any licensed firm will hand its licence over without hesitating. Ours is 242606081.
Licences are granted for any period up to a maximum of three years, and the term is a signal in itself — HSE sets it against its assessment of the contractor, including past performance. A first licence is normally one year; three years is the maximum.
3. Is there a survey, and who did it?
A quote written without a survey or a laboratory result is a guess. HSE strongly recommends using accredited surveying organisations, and UKAS is currently the sole recognised accreditation body in Great Britain for asbestos inspection bodies carrying out surveys. If the work is intrusive, the document you need is a refurbishment and demolition survey, not a management survey.
4. Is there a plan of work — and, for licensed work, the notification?
Licensable work must be notified to the enforcing authority on the ASB5 form at least 14 days before it starts, and only a shorter period the authority has agreed to. So if someone offers to start a licensed job next week, that is not automatically wrong — ask to see the ASB5 and the date it was submitted. Ask for the plan of work too, before you sign anything; it should describe the enclosure, the method, the controls and the waste route.
5. Is the set-up priced, or is it going to appear later?
Enclosure, negative pressure, airlocks, transit route, decontamination unit, welfare, power. On licensed work these are not extras, they are the job. A price that only covers “removing the material” will grow.
6. Who is doing the air monitoring and the clearance?
For licensed removal, an independent analyst carries out four-stage clearance before the area goes back into use. Independence matters, and HSE is explicit about it: the clearance analyst should be independently sourced and employed by the building owner or occupier, not by the contractor doing the removal. Check whether monitoring and clearance are included, excluded or arranged on your behalf — it is one of the most common lines to be quietly left out.
7. Where is the waste going?
This is the check most people skip and the one that carries the most personal risk. Under the waste duty of care you must know who is taking your waste and where it is going, and the Environment Agency’s advice to builders is blunt: check the EA public register of waste carriers before you engage them. The EA warned in 2021 that builders sending site waste to illegal collectors can face fines of up to £50,000 — and that is a headline figure, not a ceiling; on conviction, fines under the Environmental Protection Act are unlimited.
Ask for the waste carrier registration number and the name of the transfer station. Ours is CBDU525609. Ask to be given consignment notes for every load, not “at the end”.
8. Insurance, training and medicals
Public and employers’ liability, current. Operatives trained to the right category for the work, with in-date asbestos medicals. A contractor who cannot produce this in an afternoon does not have it.
9. What happens to the hole afterwards?
Removal leaves a gap. If your quote does not mention reinstatement — replacement sheets, re-boarded ceiling, re-skimmed wall, made-good floor — then somebody else is pricing that later, and you are managing two trades instead of one.
A website is not a licence
Search “asbestos removal” plus any town in the country and you will find national-sounding operations with a phone number, a stock photograph of a man in a white suit, no address, no company number and no licence number anywhere on the site.
Some are lead-generation sites that sell your enquiry on. Some are one van. A few are genuinely licensed contractors with a bad website. The way to tell them apart takes two minutes: ask for the licence number, the company number and the waste carrier registration, and check them. All three are public. A real contractor will not mind; nobody who does this properly is offended by being checked.
What fly-tipping actually costs — and who it costs
Asbestos waste is hazardous waste. It cannot go in a general waste skip, it cannot go in a bin, and it cannot go to an ordinary tip — it is double-bagged or double-wrapped, consigned, and taken to a facility licensed to take it. Licensed disposal has a real, unavoidable cost per load, and when a price is impossibly low, disposal is very often where the saving came from.
If that waste ends up in a lay-by or on the edge of a field, the problem does not stay with the man who dumped it. Duty of care makes the producer responsible for knowing who took the waste and where it went — which is why the check in point 7 is not paperwork for its own sake. It is the thing that stands between you and somebody else’s decision.
The second job always costs more than the first
The jobs we are called to clean up have a pattern. Material taken down dry, without enclosure or wetting. Debris and dust left in a void, a loft or a plant room. No air test, no clearance, no consignment notes, no paperwork of any kind. Sometimes an invoice, sometimes not even that.
What that leaves is no longer a defined removal job with a known quantity of material. It is a contaminated area — and a contaminated area has to be assessed, enclosed, cleaned, air tested and cleared before anybody can say where the boundary is. That is a bigger job than the original one was, and it is on top of a price already paid.
What a straight quote should look like
For what it is worth, this is what ours contains, and it is a fair test of anyone else’s:
- what the material is and where, referenced to a survey or a laboratory result
- whether the work is licensable, NNLW or non-licensed
- the controls: enclosure, negative pressure, wetting, RPE, DCU, transit route
- who is doing the air monitoring and clearance, and whether it is included
- how the waste leaves site, under what registration, to which facility
- reinstatement, if you want it, in the same price
- a fixed written price within 24 hours for the scope set out in the quotation — the price we quote for that scope is the price you pay
If a quote will not tell you those things, it is not cheaper. It is smaller.
Common questions
Why is one quote half the price of the others?
Almost always because it is not the same scope. Check the category of work, whether enclosure and analyst are included, and where the waste is going. Those three lines account for most of the gap.
How do I check an asbestos contractor is licensed?
Ask for the licence number and expiry date in writing, and check it against the CONIAC list of current licensed contractors that HSE points clients to. Ask for the waste carrier registration too, and check that on the Environment Agency public register.
Do I need a licensed contractor for a garage roof?
Usually no. Removing asbestos cement roof sheeting is non-licensed work provided the sheets are handled and removed without being broken up. If they are already substantially damaged, or the job will break them up, it becomes notifiable non-licensed work — which brings notification, medical surveillance and health records with it. Either way the sheets are double-bagged and disposed of under consignment, and that is the part people skip, not the removal.
Is a cheap quote ever legitimate?
Yes — a smaller contractor with lower overheads can be genuinely cheaper on a small non-licensed job. That is a different thing from a price that could not cover disposal. Run the nine checks and the difference becomes obvious.
What paperwork should I get at the end?
For licensed work: the plan of work and HSE notification, air monitoring results, the four-stage clearance certificate, consignment notes and photographs, plus an updated register for the building. For non-licensed work: the waste consignment notes and a record of what was removed, at minimum.
