Renovating With Asbestos

I am looking at buying a house to rent out but it has a couple of holes in the walls (from previous angry tenants...and an owner who didn't care about the property). It is made of asbestos, the entire house is. How do I fix the holes DIY?
Can it be done or so I have to bring in a specialist builder who can replace the asbestos panel? If so how much will that cost do you think?

It costs a lot! You could consider getting an asbestos remover to remove only the affected panels and replacing them yourself with fibre cement sheeting (it looks the same but contains no asbestos).

Also, if you were to carry out repairs, asbestos sheeting that is intact and stable should present no particular hazard, however, when the sheeting is fractured or broken the fibres will be released and this is when the hazard is presented.

Design & Build Consultant
http://brutalart.com.au

When you say it costs A LOT! how much are we talking about? Like hundreds of dollars? Thousands of dollars? or multiple thousands of dollars? The property is pretty cheap (around $100k) so spending 5k on changing two wall panels doesn't seem to be worth the worry. It would veto the entire investment.

So how much are we talking?

Well I guess it depends on where you are. You would need a asbestos removalist with a minimum of a B class License and I would say you be looking at 1 to 1.5 thou. Ummm how old is the property? If in Brisbane I can give you a name of someone who does this work.

Thanks
Brian    

You could patch the holes with Fibre cement sheets and gyprock.
You will need to cut the Fc sheet into the same size as the fist holes.
Then you get some 2x1 cut them so they are a little longr than the holes, put a few long screws into the timber to hole it and some liquid nails at the ends of the timber. Work the timber into the hole, using the long screw as leverage
Get  a second batten, screw through the second batten, through the hole and into the first batten  to help holed the first batten until the glue sets.

once the glue sets, remove the batten from the outside part of the wall, and screw your FC sheeting piec into the first batten, which should be secured to the inside of the wall

Coat over the top with gyprock.

Or call a Gyprocker in

good luck

Adrien

www.ecobuildingservices.com.au

Great advice from Adrian....
Take it easy so you don't disturb the sheet too much and all should be fine.
As a little extra peace of mind, you might consider sealing the broken sheet with paint.

Design & Build Consultant
http://brutalart.com.au

One extra bit of safety before you go working around the hole would be to dilute some PVA glue in a spray bottle and spray this directly onto the broken edges , this will bind the fibers together, and were a P2 dust mask just to be shore . A simple patch as explained by Adrien will cost very little.

good luck
Matt