Gaco Asbestos Roof Waterproofing in County Waterford — Encapsulation Without Removal

County Waterford has some of Ireland’s most productive tillage land. Teagasc, whose Waterford and Kilkenny advisory region is based at Dungarvan and serves roughly 3,000 farmer clients, lists winter wheat, winter barley and oilseed rape among the county’s crops, grown alongside beef and dairy. Census 2022 counted 127,363 people in the county, with Dungarvan, Tramore, Lismore, Portlaw, Dunmore East and Cappoquin among its towns. Across that farmland stand the buildings that make arable and mixed farming work.

Tillage asks a lot of a roof. Grain stores and drying sheds must keep a harvested crop dry for months, machinery sheds shelter combines and sprayers, and fertiliser and seed stores need to stay watertight. On dairy and beef farms the list adds parlours, cubicle houses and calf pens. Where those buildings were put up in the years when corrugated asbestos cement was the usual farm sheet, they now have roofs that have been weathering for a long time. The first sign of trouble is often a leak over the grain heap or a stain spreading across a store floor.

No station in County Waterford has a full published 1991 to 2020 Met Éireann normal, so the nearest reference is Cork Airport, which averaged 1,239 mm of rain a year with around 162 wet days. Over decades, rain at that level erodes the cement face, feeds lichen and moss and corrodes fixings. Encapsulation seals the roof in place with Gaco urethane coatings, U91 and U92 being the grades used on asbestos cement, applied over the existing sheets. The store keeps its roof, there is no asbestos waste from a strip-out, and the work is scheduled outside the busiest harvest weeks if you ask. An approved installer surveys, replaces broken sheets, cleans without abrading the cement and coats in dry weather within Gaco’s limits. Duratite supplies the materials and the approved installer carries out the work.

The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Exposure to Asbestos) Regulations 2006 (S.I. No. 386 of 2006, as amended) apply to asbestos work on Waterford farms, and the Health and Safety Authority enforces them. Fragile sheets mean access is planned with staging and crawling boards. Waterford City and County Council is the building control authority for the whole county, and TGD L 2022 applies if insulation is changed. The island-of-Ireland reference project for asbestos cement roof encapsulation is SAICA Warrenpoint, Co. Down.

When you get in touch about a Waterford farm roof, mention what is stored in the building and when it is fullest, the rough size of the roof, and any leaks you have already seen. Photographs taken from inside the store on a wet day are particularly helpful.