Gaco Asbestos Roof Waterproofing in Wexford — Encapsulation Without Removal

Wexford town stands on Wexford Harbour on the county’s south-east coast and had 21,524 people at Census 2022. Wexford County Council administers the town through the Borough District of Wexford, with a district office at The Bullring, and it manages the harbour together with its marinas and piers. The town is one of a group of centres across the county, alongside Enniscorthy, Gorey, New Ross and Rosslare, and it is the urban buildings of the town itself that this page is concerned with.

Wexford is more industrial than many people assume. Census 2022 recorded manufacturing as County Wexford’s second-largest employment sector, with just over 7,500 workers, behind wholesale and retail trade on more than 9,600 and ahead of health and social work on more than 7,300. Manufacturing and distribution need factories, workshops, stores and yards, and a harbour town accumulates boat sheds, stores and commercial premises near the water. Buildings from the decades when corrugated asbestos cement was a routine roof specification are part of that mix, and many are still working.

Roofs close to a harbour face salt-laden wind and wet weather, and older asbestos cement sheets respond by eroding at the surface, cracking at fixings and leaking at laps and ridges. For a manufacturer, the prospect of stripping a roof, with production halted and the building open to the weather, is often what delays the decision. Encapsulation avoids that. Gaco urethane coatings, U91 and U92 being the grades used on asbestos cement, are applied over the existing sheets to seal them beneath a continuous waterproof film. The approved installer surveys the roof, protects plant and rooflights, replaces broken sheets and prepares the surface without abrasion, and production below can usually continue, subject to the risk assessment. Duratite supplies the coating system 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 any work that could disturb asbestos in Wexford town, and the Health and Safety Authority is the enforcing body. On a factory roof the installer designs safe access across fragile sheets and plans how waste and wash water are contained. Wexford County Council is the building control authority, 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.

For a Wexford town factory or harbour-side building, send the approximate roof area, details of plant, extraction and rooflights, and your production hours. If parts of the site cannot stop, say so early, so the approved installer can plan a phased programme.