The client questioned this, because it could mean that all of these old pipes would have to be treated as containing asbestos and be disposed of accordingly.

By way of clarification, we explained that any asbestos present, would most likely be in the joints of the pipes, rather than the pipes themselves, but we couldn’t inspect these without compromising the integrity of the rainwater system. We therefore recommended two options:

• Treat the joints as asbestios waste and cut the pipes above and below the joints, placing the undisturbed joint in the asbestos skip during demolition
• Dismantle a joint during the demolition process and inspect for asbestos

The client’s curiosity got the better of him and he instructed the contractor to examine the joins and sure enough, asbestos rope had been used to centre the pipes within the joint sections.

The problem with asbestos is that you never quite know where it will crop up.

For this reason, you need qualified and competent asbestos surveyors who will make sensible recommendations, reinspect certain elements after the initial survey and work closely with your demoiltion contractors to ensure that everyone is kept safe.

We call it after-sales service and it comes as standard with all of our asbestos surveys.

It’s been an interesting project so far as it’s quite removed from the normal kind of work we do.

The project arose when a mobile telephone company wanted to upgrade it’s masts that are fixed to the sides of the water towers.

The structures, for those who don’t know much about water towers, are generally made from reinforced concrete and so from an asbestos surveyor’s perspective, there’s not a lot to see.

Internally, there is just plant and equipment used by the water companies, which, we are reliably informed, doesn’t contain asbestos – at least not in the parts you’d expect, for example in gaskets and pipe joints, since most joints are dry and those that have gaskets, tend to be rubber.

However, a water tower is just like any other building that undergoes maintenance over the years and asbestos containing material can pop up anywhere. In one case, we found boards covering up opening lights in high-level windows and sure enough, it turned out to be asbestos cement. So, you never know.

Disappointing that there’s usually not an unexpected asbestos find, once you’ve climbed up to 30 metres using a mixture of stairs and cat ladders and managed to drag yourself out onto the roof, the views are often a reward in themselves.

That said, last week, we found a nice surprise on the roof of one of the towers, in the form of some asbestos paving slabs, which was a nice surprise, as you don’t see many of those these days.