Asbestos Around the Yard
In our past blog posts, we’ve talked about some fairly common places to find asbestos: like in your floor covering, drains, roof and fences. But because of its varied beneficial properties, asbestos was used in many other places throughout houses built before 1990. Let’s talk about moreur more places to find asbestos around your home or investment property…
- Outdoor Toilets
Although it may seem strange now, back in the 50s to the 80s, outdoor toilets were a common feature in many Australian homes. Built in the backyard, these toilet buildings were often made from the same material as the house, like asbestos roofing, cement or tiling. Outdoor toilets are not common anymore, but an old one may still remain in the yard long after a new inside toilet has been installed. If so, they’re often in a bad state, which makes asbestos exposure more likely.
- Dog Kennels & Cubbyhouses
Older dog kennels and cubbyhouses were often made from left-over building asbestos off cuts or asbestos material purchased from a second-hand building supply yard. The two shown below were made from asbestos cement offcuts. Below in the cubbyhouses one had walls of plank and the other the internal ceiling and outside kick panels of asbestos cement sheeting.
- Outdoor Pergolas & Garages & Retaining Walls
Asbestos cement roof and walls
Common do it yourself pergolas of the 1970s-1980s used asbestos cement pipe tilted vertical and filled with cement to form a long lasting support Also the great Aussie shed for one car used asbestos cement sheet in its various forms as roof and wall cladding. You could put up your own shed in a weekend with the mates around….
For those who wanted a varying shape retaining wall again cut off pipes filled with concrete was an obvious solution.
- Birdbaths, Flower pots & Vine lattices
Asbestos manufacturing companies supplied a number of asbestos cement garden accessories including flowerpots, birdbaths, planter boxes, lillyponds and vine lattices
- Barbeques
The great Aussie Barbie often made with offcuts from the original house or second hand material. Asbestos cement sheeting was often used to the underside of the barbeque or to support the ceramic tiles used around the barbeque benchtop
So if you’re tempted to do some clean- up of that yard be careful as there may be more than snakes and spiders around the outside of the building.