Non-licensed work

Most asbestos work must be undertaken by a licensed contractor but any decision on whether particular work is licensable is based on the risk. Licensed work is explained at 'Work with asbestos that needs a licensed contractor'.

To be exempt from needing a licence the work must be:

• Sporadic and low intensity - to be considered sporadic and low intensity the concentration of asbestos in the air should not exceed 0.6f/cm3 measured over 10 minutes; and
• Carried out in such a way that the exposure of workers to asbestos will not exceed the legal control limit of 0.1 asbestos fibres per cubic centimetre of air (0.1 f/cm3); and
• Meet at least one of four other conditions:
  • It is a short non-continuous maintenance task, with only non-friable materials (friability describes how likely an ACM is to release asbestos fibres when worked on, so non-friable materials will only release a small number of fibres during work); or
  • It is a removal task, where the ACMs are in reasonable condition and are not being deliberately broken up, and the asbestos fibres are firmly contained within a matrix, e.g. the asbestos is coated, covered or contained within another material, such as cement, paint or plastic; or
  • It is a task where the ACMs are in good condition and are being sealed or encapsulated to ensure they are not easily damaged in the future; or
  • It is an air monitoring and control task to check fibre concentrations in the air, or it's the collection and analysis of asbestos samples to confirm the presence of asbestos in a material.

Some examples of non-licensed work are contained in Asbestos Essentials.

From April 2012, some types of non-licensed asbestos work also have additional requirements – notification of work, medical surveillance and record keeping. This work is known as notifiable non-licensed work (NNLW).

The illustration of asbestos work categories chart gives some examples of what work falls into the categories of licensed, notifiable non-licensed and non-licensed.

All non-licensed and notifiable non-licensed work with asbestos needs to be carried out with the appropriate controls and training in place, to protect those doing the work (and others in the area) from the risks to health that exposure to asbestos causes.