What Does Asbestos Look Like?

The call we get most often starts the same way: "I've just drilled into my garage roof and I think it might be asbestos." The homeowner has already disturbed the material. They've seen the grey dust and gone online. Now they're worried.

Asbestos cement is the material that trips people up most in South East London. It looks almost identical to modern fibre-cement — the same grey colour, the same corrugated profile, the same weight in your hand. The difference is in the details: older sheets have a slightly rougher surface texture, a more pronounced weathering pattern, and a characteristic crazing that modern cement doesn't develop in the same way. But you need to have handled both to know the difference, and most homeowners haven't.

The second most common mistake is with floor tiles. A homeowner pulls up a carpet in a 1970s kitchen and finds 9-inch square tiles in cream and brown. They look like ordinary vinyl. They might be. But if the house was built before 1980 and the tiles are square, brittle, and stuck down with a black bitumen adhesive, the probability of asbestos is high enough to warrant testing before anyone starts lifting them. The adhesive is often the problem — even when the tile itself tests negative, the mastic beneath it can contain chrysotile.

The rule we follow on site is simple: if you're not certain, treat it as asbestos. Stop work, don't disturb it further, and arrange sampling and testing. The cost of a test is trivial compared to the cost of getting it wrong.