Gaco Asbestos Roof Waterproofing in County Meath — Encapsulation Without Removal

County Meath is low-lying, inland farming country centred on the Boyne Valley, with a short stretch of Irish Sea coast between the Boyne and Delvin rivers. Few counties have as many neighbours: Meath borders Dublin, Louth, Monaghan, Cavan, Westmeath, Offaly and Kildare. Census 2022 put its population at 220,826, spread through Navan, Trim, Kells, Ashbourne and Dunboyne and a wide countryside between them. This page is about that countryside, and in particular the older sheds and haybarns that still sit under corrugated asbestos cement.

Teagasc runs Meath together with Louth and Dublin as a single advisory region, serving around 5,000 farmer clients through roughly 65 discussion groups in dairying, cattle and sheep. Those enterprises share a need for housing and storage: cubicle and slatted sheds for cattle, lambing sheds, meal stores and machinery bays. Plenty of the older ones were roofed when asbestos cement was the usual agricultural sheet, and many have been extended since, with a newer bay of steel sheeting bolted onto an original asbestos cement roof. That patchwork is common on long-established farms and it matters, because the two materials age and are treated differently.

Meath is drier than the west. Met Éireann’s Dublin Airport station, used as the long-term reference for the area, averaged 772.5 mm of rain a year over 1991 to 2020. The weathering is slower, not absent: the cement surface softens, lichen spreads across the corrugations and the sheet ends over the gutters stay damp. Encapsulation seals that surface where it is. Gaco urethane coatings, with U91 and U92 used on asbestos cement, go over the existing roof, so no sheets come off and no animals need rehousing for a strip-out. An approved installer surveys, replaces broken sheets, cleans without abrading the cement and applies the coating in dry weather within Gaco’s limits. Duratite supplies the materials; the installer does the work.

Farm roofs fall under the same law as any workplace. The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Exposure to Asbestos) Regulations 2006 (S.I. No. 386 of 2006, as amended) govern work that may disturb asbestos cement, and the Health and Safety Authority is the regulator. Falls through fragile sheets are the other serious hazard, so the installer’s plan uses staging and boards, never the bare roof. Meath County Council is the building control authority, and TGD L 2022 is relevant if the insulation is changed. The island-of-Ireland reference project for asbestos roof encapsulation is SAICA Warrenpoint, Co. Down.

When enquiring about a Meath farm roof, list the buildings you are worried about, what each one houses and when it is busiest, and whether any bays have been added in steel. A few photographs of the roof and of the inside of any leaking areas are a useful start for the survey.