Gaco Asbestos Roof Waterproofing in Athlone — Encapsulation Without Removal

Athlone is Westmeath’s largest town, home to 22,869 people at Census 2022, and it sits on the River Shannon where the river opens into Lough Ree. Westmeath County Council administers it through the Athlone-Moate Municipal District, which replaced the former Athlone Town Council. The council’s development plan treats the town as a Regional Growth Centre, pointing to the Shannon and Lough Ree as key amenities and to its connections by the M6 motorway and the Dublin to Galway and Westport railway.

A town at a river crossing on a national road and rail line gathers a lot of commercial building over the decades. In Athlone’s case that means warehouses, workshops, depots and commercial premises of many ages. In the county as a whole, Census 2022 found wholesale and retail trade the largest employer, with almost 5,400 workers, followed by health and social work and manufacturing. Older buildings serving that trade were often roofed with corrugated asbestos cement, and a unit that has changed hands several times may have a roof no current occupier knows much about.

Met Éireann’s Shannon Airport station, the nearest with a full 1991 to 2020 record, averaged 1,019.7 mm of rain a year on about 168 wet days. Riverside roofs also sit in damp air. Decades of that weather erode asbestos cement, let lichen and moss establish, and leave leaks at laps, fixings and rooflights. Encapsulation seals the roof without taking it off. Gaco urethane coatings, U91 and U92 being the grades used on asbestos cement, are applied over the existing sheets to make a continuous waterproof layer, so a shop, store or workshop underneath can usually keep trading, subject to the installer’s risk assessment. The approved installer surveys the roof, notes every vent and rooflight, replaces broken sheets and prepares the surface without abrasion. Duratite supplies the coatings and the approved installer carries out the work.

In Athlone, as elsewhere in the Republic, the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Exposure to Asbestos) Regulations 2006 (S.I. No. 386 of 2006, as amended) apply to work that could disturb asbestos, and the Health and Safety Authority enforces them. The risk assessment covers notification, fragile-roof access and control of wash water, which matters close to the river. Westmeath County Council is the building control authority, and TGD L 2022 applies if insulation is changed. SAICA Warrenpoint, Co. Down is the island-of-Ireland reference project.

For an Athlone premises, let us know what the business below does, how close the building is to the river, and whether the roof has rooflights, vents or plant on it. That gives the approved installer what is needed to plan a survey that does not disrupt trading.