The survey arrives with the tender pack. Forty pages, a UKAS logo on the cover, a register of eleven items, all low risk. Two weeks into the strip a labourer puts a breaker through a boxed-in duct on the second floor and finds pipe lagging nobody sampled. Work stops. The client points at the survey. The survey, on page four, says it was a management survey commissioned for the landlord’s compliance file and excludes areas that would require destructive inspection. Everyone read the register. Nobody read page four.
A refurbishment and demolition survey is the intrusive asbestos survey required before any work that will disturb the fabric of a building, whether that is a strip back to frame or demolition. It exists to find and identify every asbestos-containing material in the area of the works, including material hidden inside the construction, so that it can be removed before the work starts. It is often called an R&D asbestos survey, or an asbestos refurbishment survey where no demolition is planned. It is the same survey to the same standard.
Management survey or refurbishment and demolition survey: which one do you have?
HSE recognises two survey types, and the difference between them is the difference between a building in use and a building about to be opened up.
| Management survey | Refurbishment and demolition survey | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Locate and assess asbestos that could be disturbed during normal occupation and routine maintenance, and feed the asbestos register and management plan | Locate and identify all asbestos-containing materials in the area of planned works before they start, so they can be removed |
| How intrusive | Minor intrusion, presumption allowed where access is not reasonable | Fully intrusive and destructive: voids opened, ducts cut, finishes lifted |
| Building state | Normally occupied | Area vacated, then certified fit for reoccupation afterwards |
| Scope | Whole building | The area and depth of the intended works, which is why the scope must match the job |
| Who relies on it | The dutyholder managing the building | The contractor about to strip or demolish it, and everyone on that site |
The trap in the left-hand column is that a management survey looks like an asbestos survey, and for a contractor pricing a strip it is a document about a different building. Three questions when the pack lands: which type, how old, and what did it exclude?
What does the law require before demolition or refurbishment?
Two duties sit behind the survey, on two different people.
The employer carrying out the work owes the first. Regulation 5 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 says an employer must not undertake demolition, maintenance or any other work liable to expose employees to asbestos unless either a suitable and sufficient assessment has been made of whether asbestos is present, what type, in what material and in what condition, or, where there is doubt, the employer assumes asbestos is present, assumes it is not chrysotile alone, and works to the Regulations on that basis. That is the demolition contractor’s duty and it cannot be delegated to the client’s paperwork. If the survey in the pack is the wrong type, the assessment has not been made.
The client owes the second. Under CDM 2015 the client must provide pre-construction information to the designers and contractors, and on an existing building the asbestos survey is the most important document in that set. HSE’s guidance states plainly that there is a legal requirement for all asbestos-containing materials to be removed, so far as reasonably practicable, before major refurbishment or demolition begins. A client who hands over a five-year-old management survey and calls it pre-construction information has met the letter of one duty and none of the intent.
HSE’s own method for the survey is HSG264, Asbestos: The survey guide. It recommends using surveying organisations accredited by UKAS, which HSE describes as the sole recognised accreditation body in Great Britain for asbestos inspection bodies. Accreditation is not a legal requirement. It is the quickest way to tell a survey that will stand up from one that will not.
How do you read the report before you price the job?
Start at the back. The caveats, exclusions and no-access schedule tell you what the surveyor did not see, and that list is the risk you are being asked to carry. Then read the front matter for the scope: which floors, which areas, to what depth of intrusion, and whether it matches the works you have been asked to price. Only then go to the register.
In the register, separate the three kinds of entry. Identified items have been sampled and analysed. Strongly presumed items look like asbestos and have not been sampled, usually because sampling was unsafe or pointless when identical material had already been confirmed nearby. Presumed items are areas the surveyor could not get into, so the fabric is treated as containing asbestos by default. On a demolition, presumed items are a licence to price the removal and the delay. On a refurbishment, they are a decision for the client: open it up now, or carry the risk into the contract.
HSE suggests four checks on the accuracy of any survey report: that there are no caveats or disclaimers you did not agree to, that the plans are clear and accurate, that every room and area has been accessed, and that enough samples have been taken, typically one or two per area, without the sample count being dominated by a single material type. A report that fails those checks is not a survey you can price from. It is a reason to ask for a second visit before the tender closes.
Picture a 1960s primary school due for demolition over the summer holidays. The R&D survey was commissioned in March while the children were still in the building, so the surveyor was given the plant room, the roof voids and one classroom block, and told to presume the rest. The register lists sixty items. The presumed schedule runs to another two pages. A contractor who prices the sixty and ignores the two pages will find them in July, with the site clock running and September fixed. A contractor who prices the two pages as removal, and says so, will look expensive at tender and right on site.
Who commissions the refurbishment and demolition survey?
The building owner or client, in nearly every case, because they control access and hold the existing information. The timing is where it goes wrong. A survey commissioned after contract award becomes a variation before the first skip arrives. Commissioned before tender, it becomes the basis of the price, and every bidder is pricing the same building.
The demolition contractor still has to check it is fit for purpose, and to commission additional survey work where the scope falls short of the works. That is regulation 5 again. On a building where the client will not or cannot allow full intrusive access before tender, the defensible tender response is to price what has been surveyed and state the balance as presumed, with a rate. Anything else transfers a known risk into the contractor’s margin without payment.
Where does software help with asbestos surveys, and where does it not?
It does not find asbestos. Nothing replaces a competent surveyor with a chisel and a set of sample bags.
It helps with what happens to the survey afterwards. A sixty-item register with a two-page presumed schedule has to become a scope, a removal programme, a set of notifications and a priced line in a tender, and then it has to be kept in step with what the crew finds on site. Structured extraction of a survey report into a register the estimator and the site team both work from removes a great deal of retyping and a fair number of transcription errors. Linking each register item to its location on the plan, its removal method and its clearance certificate gives the principal contractor an audit trail that a ring binder does not. Where a presumed item turns out to be something else, the change propagates to the price and the programme rather than living in someone’s notebook. None of that is a claim about safety outcomes. It is a claim about paperwork.
Frequently asked questions
Is a refurbishment and demolition survey a legal requirement?
The survey by that name is not written into the Regulations. The assessment it delivers is. Regulation 5 of CAR 2012 requires the employer to know what asbestos is present before demolition or maintenance work, or to assume the worst. On any building constructed or refurbished before 2000, an intrusive survey is the only realistic way to meet that duty before a strip or demolition.
How is it different from an asbestos management survey?
A management survey supports the day-to-day management of a building in use and involves only minor intrusion. A refurbishment and demolition survey is fully intrusive, covers the area of the planned works to the depth the works will reach, and requires the area to be vacated and certified fit for reoccupation afterwards.
Do I need an R&D survey for a soft strip?
Yes. A soft strip demolition opens ceilings, floors, risers and ducts, which is exactly where a management survey will not have looked.
Can the survey be limited to part of a building?
It can, and often is. The scope should match the area and depth of the works. Limiting it further to save money moves asbestos risk from the survey line into the contract, where it costs more.
How long is a refurbishment and demolition survey valid for?
There is no statutory expiry. The survey describes the building as it was on the day. If the building has been altered, re-let, fitted out or partially stripped since, the survey no longer describes it, and the assessment under regulation 5 has to be revisited.
Does a pre-demolition audit replace the asbestos survey?
No. A pre-demolition audit inventories the materials in a building for reuse and recovery. The asbestos survey is a separate, specialist exercise and the audit relies on it.
The wider question of what asbestos does to a demolition price is covered in our guide to asbestos and demolition costs, and the duties on clients and contractors are set out in our CDM 2015 duty-holder guide. Surtori works with demolition contractors on the estimating and site documentation behind jobs like these. Read about our work on operational efficiency for demolition contractors, or book a discovery call.