Replacing Super six roof

[simmidy]

Have a house with a super six roof. Considering replacing it but have heard its not cheap. Just wondering if anyone has had it done and what approx. it costs.

Roof is in okay condition - but don't like the thought of an asbestos roof. plus want to insulate - but as its a flat roof - no access! Can get it blown in - but costs so much as they need to remove some of the sheets to get insulation in. So at least if we replace super six we can insulate while the roof is off.

Cheers!

[vsquizz]

simmidy, I'm just about to pull blue asbestos super six off a small single gable house. I'm charging the client a grand plus tip fees. Every state has guidelines and councils have some regulations for this type of work but the key is don't make dust. We remove the screws and stack the sheets in small stacks of about 4 or 5 over soft slings. We then use an excavator to crane the sheets off into a tip truck lined with black plastic.

You need good quality respirators, gloves and disposable overalls. If the roof is dry and very fibrous wet it down the night before. The securing screws can be a bugger and may need a creative approach if they wont come out with a power drill. Grinding the head can be done carefully if the large washers are in place but this leaves the screw stuck in the timber and you will have to remove it later before re-roofing. Super Six is quite safe as long as you don't make any dust out of it.

Good Luck, and I believe what you are planning is a good move. Insulation and a colourbond roof, bewdy.

Cheers

[vsquizz]

Oh and welcome to the BB.


Cheers

[simmidy]

Thanks for the welcome and info.
Plus I think I have a rat in the roof - so if we replace the roof we can actually see if the bloody thing has been nibbling on any wires. Gotta love the flat roof!!

[SteveAndBelle]

Smiddy,

Welcome fellow banana-bender My wife and I were faced with a similar situation. We bought a small post-war weatherboard 2-bed + sleepout house in Oxley about four years ago and even though the super six roof was in good nick I never felt 'right' about it especially as we had plans to add a few more rooms, add a deck etc. We obviously would've replaced the roof during the extension construction process but it would've added extra time & money which we weren't prepared to lose or pay.

We then found out (through various state development connections) that Queensland would be slowly introducing an asbestos register for all dwellings (not just Government owned) within about 5 years and that kinda scared us. The walls and celing were also asbestos so even though we could replace the roof relatively easily & cheaply we'd still be stuck with a house full of the stuff and it would be added to the register to boot ! It may not mean much to many people now but my prediction is that in about ten years if your house is on an asbestos register you can basically count on not getting as much when you sell as you would if it wasn't on a register ... kinda obvious I know.

Anyhoo, to cut a very long story short we ended up installing that pump-in paper pulp type insulation (Cool or Cosy) and it did wonders to the upper peak temperatures in summer and kept the place incredibly warm in winter so much so that we never needed to use heaters at all and believe it or not the outside temperatures in Oxley used to get down to below 2 degrees (we were near a creek you see). They lifted a sheet of roofing to pump it in and it seemed to go back without too much hassle so go the insulation no matter what ! The small outlay is definitely worth it.

To cut the story even shorter we stayed in the house for another year or two but due to the rediculousness of the QLD property market (which tripled the value of our house in only three years) we sold the place off and bought a nice big Queenslander a couple of suburbs closer into town with only VJ's and corrogated iron to worry about ! No absestos anywhere to be seen ! We've been here for 3 months now and apart from a leaky roof in the kitchen from the 85 year old roofing iron it's an amazing place.

Oh, and now we're in massive amounts of debt for the next 30 years ... but oh well, at least we dealt with the asbestos problem

Have you considered moving ... seriously ?

Steve.

[simmidy]

Ceiling and walls aren't absestos - so only the roof. So I don't think moving is an option we would look at. Interesting what you say about the register - but how on earth would they introduce a system like that and actually get everyone to comply/register? They are having enough problems dealing with the government owed buildings (eg: hospitals and schools).

[SteveAndBelle]

Ah, well if your ceilings and walls aren't evil then go for it !!

Yeah, we told a chippie friend of ours about the rumoured 'register' and he told us that it would never be introduced. I dunno what to think now. There's gotta be over 500,000 private houses in Brisbane alone with some sort of asbestos surely ?! Not too sure how they plan to 'control' a register like that but I'm just glad to be rid of the problem let alone the health risks.

Everyone won in this situation tho ... we got the house of our dreams (well, in about 10 years time and after spending about $100K to get a new roof, fix the leaky bathroom, rip down and replace the front fence, renovate the kitchen, renovate the ensuite, repaint inside & out and do some lovely landscaping) and the people who bought our old place got exactly what they were looking for too as they were just starting out and wanted to a 'fixer upper' to invest in.

Where's your place ?

Steve.

[simmidy]

we are in holland park. I like the area - we have lots of trees as we are close to Toohey forest.

thanks
Simmidy

[SteveAndBelle]

Ooooh, yeah Holland Park is niiiiice ! Close enough to town to be convenient yet far enough away to get out of the hustle & bustle.

You'll easily get your money back on anything you do to that place ... so what are you waiting for ?!

Steve.

[johnmc]

There's gotta be over 500,000 private houses in Brisbane alone with some sort of asbestos surely ?!

Last time I checked, Brisbane's population was around 1.6 million. Assuming that all those houses were inhabited, that would mean that about one in three people in Brisbane live in a private home with some sort of asbestos.

A slight exaggeration perhaps.

[markharrison]

Last time I checked, Brisbane's population was around 1.6 million. Assuming that all those houses were inhabited, that would mean that about one in three people in Brisbane live in a private home with some sort of asbestos.

A slight exaggeration perhaps.

Probably not that much of an exagerration. Asbestos products were used well into the eighties. Just about any house constructed before 1988 probably has some asbestos in it somewhere and in places you would least expect. Linoleum tiles, for instance!

[markharrison]

Thanks for the welcome and info.
Plus I think I have a rat in the roof - so if we replace the roof we can actually see if the bloody thing has been nibbling on any wires. Gotta love the flat roof!!

Might not be a rat. We have the same roof and Ringtail Possums are in there! They get in on the asbestos edge cr*p on the gable ends of the roof. They sure are flexible!

[SteveAndBelle]

Yeah, it's quite surprising how much asbestos is around actually. I was recently helping my brother renovate a very typical brick highset place built in about 1974 and after ripping into a few walls for about 2 hours with basic crappy dust masks on assuming we may only inhale a few dust type particles we suddenly discovered the words 'contains asbestos' written on the rear face of some of the wall sheeting.

We stopped what we were doing, got ourselves some better coverage masks (but still not 'asbestos rated') and sprayed everything down with trigger spray water bottles.

I honestly didn't think people were still using asbestos in construction in the 70's however it seems as though this was the case all the way through to the 80's from what Mark has said.

Hmmm, something to keep in mind with any renovation I suppose ... cough, cough !

Steve.

[markharrison]

I honestly didn't think people were still using asbestos in construction in the 70's however it seems as though this was the case all the way through to the 80's from what Mark has said.
Steve.

Products with asbestos were not banned at the outset. Just the manufacture. There was lots of product still in the channel for a long time after. That's why it went on so late.

Anyway, that's my understanding of the problem anyway.

The problem was with the manufacturers not the builders. Problems with asbestos have been known since the Roman empire. I believe it was Pliny the elder that had observed that slaves working in the asbestos mines died considerably younger than other slaves.

So we are talking a long, long, long time. Pliny the elder was killed in the pyroclastic cloud that smothered Herculaneum and Pompeii. :eek:

[Jon]

Would you knowledgable types vacuumn the roof cavity after removing the asbestos roof before adding the insulation and reroofing?
I replaced an asbestos roof with colourbond a few years back and it is something that came to me in hindsite.
The roof cavity was as dusty as so some of the dust would have been asbestos dust. I know that if it is not disturbed etc. but anyone working up there would be kicking up dust and the day that it is bulldozed it will let loose a huge cloud.
I sold the place six years ago.

Jon