Gaco Asbestos Roof Waterproofing in County Fermanagh — Encapsulation Without Removal

Fermanagh is lake and upland country. Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, which covers the historic county together with Omagh, describes an area of lakelands, heather-clad mountains, ancient boglands and forest parks, including the Cuilcagh Lakelands Geopark. At 2,829 km² it is the largest of Northern Ireland’s 11 council areas, and it had 116,800 residents in Census 2021. Enniskillen, Lisnaskea, Irvinestown, Kesh and Newtownbutler are the county’s main towns, and farms are spread widely across the ground between the loughs.

It is also the wettest of the Northern Ireland stations in our verified data. The Met Office’s Lisnaskea Creamery station averaged about 1,064 mm of rain a year over 1991 to 2020, on around 179 wet days. That is roughly 240 mm more than Armagh, with rain on almost half the days of the year. Old asbestos cement roofs in that climate seldom get the chance to dry. Moss and lichen spread across the sheets, the cement surface wears away, and water sitting in laps and around fixings eventually finds a way through.

The farming reflects the ground. DAERA’s June 2025 census found 2,961 farms with a Co. Fermanagh address, averaging 36 hectares, and of 120,454 hectares farmed, 106,447 were grass with a further 10,241 in rough grazing. Beef cows outnumbered dairy cows by 35,404 to 24,159 within a cattle total of 152,847, and there were 115,967 sheep, while pig and poultry numbers were the lowest of the six counties. The buildings that count here are cattle houses, sheep sheds and fodder stores, which are full through the winter and cannot easily be emptied so a roof can be stripped.

Encapsulation lets those buildings stay in use. After surveying the sheets and the structure, the approved installer replaces broken sheets, cleans the roof without abrasion and seals it with Gaco urethane coatings, finished with a GacoFlex silicone topcoat where full waterproofing is specified. With so many wet days the programme needs slack: preparation can proceed between showers, while the coats themselves wait for a dry surface and conditions within Gaco’s published limits. On farms close to a lough shore, the installer also plans how washings from roof cleaning are collected instead of being left to run towards the water.

The Control of Asbestos Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2012 apply to this work and HSENI enforces them. The installer’s risk assessment and plan of work come before any access to the roof, which is made from boards and staging because the sheets are fragile. Fermanagh and Omagh District Council is the building control authority if insulation is added under the Building Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2012 and Technical Booklet F2. Duratite supplies the coatings and connects Fermanagh farmers with an approved installer, and the island-of-Ireland reference project is asbestos cement roof encapsulation at SAICA Warrenpoint, Co. Down.