Asbestos

Asbestos is a deliberately small, self-contained survey type: a register of asbestos-containing material (ACM) entries, not a room-by-room investigation. It carries no Awaab’s Law statutory clock — its duty comes from a different, older statute.

What it is

Asbestos sits outside the Awaab’s Law framework entirely. The relevant duty is the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, regulation 4 — the duty to manage — a statute that has already applied since 2012 and has nothing to do with Awaab’s Law’s phased timescales. This hazard type’s report never shows a statutory timeline for that reason, and its wizard skips the HHSRS scoring step every other hazard type carries, because HSG227’s material and priority risk-band scoring is a genuinely different, dedicated methodology, kept deliberately separate from HHSRS.

Two survey types are available, chosen before you start:

• Management survey — the day-to-day register: one entry per location where an ACM is found, presumed, or sampled.
• Refurbishment/demolition (R&D) survey — used before destructive works, with its own works-area scope, an area-vacated confirmation, and an HSG264 §53 fit-for-reoccupation sign-off, in addition to the same per-item findings.

Before you start

Choose the survey type — management or refurbishment/demolition — before you begin the register; it decides which of the two report sections and sign-off requirements apply.

How to do it

1. For each ACM found or suspected, add a register entry recording its location and a material description.
2. Record whether its identification is presumed (a competent-person judgement) or sampled (a UKAS-accredited laboratory result) — the platform never treats these two as equivalent, and never assigns one for you.
3. Complete the HSG227 material and, where relevant, priority assessment inputs — the register shows a live score/band preview as you go, computed against the published methodology.
4. Add photos of each item as evidence.
5. If a sample was taken, record the sample reference and lab details; the actual lab result is added later, once received, by revising the finalised record — see The evidence register for how a sealed record can still be honestly corrected.

How it integrates

The register’s HSG227 scores are recomputed authoritatively at save time by the platform’s own domain engine — the on-screen figure while you work is a live preview only. Asbestos has its own AI preset (housing-asbestos-mmf), but its scope is deliberately narrow: image analysis restates only the visible condition of a material you have already identified or presumed — undamaged, minor surface damage, moderate damage, severe damage or visible debris — and never claims to identify asbestos itself from a photo. The platform does not identify, sample or analyse asbestos, and no AI feature attempts to. Asbestos identification requires either a competent person’s presumption or a UKAS-accredited laboratory sample; this hazard type only ever records which of those two happened and what it found.

Common problems

• I need a lab result but haven’t received it yet. Finalise the survey with the sample recorded as pending, then revise the sealed record once the lab reports back.
• The score preview and the final report figure don’t match exactly. The report always uses the authoritative, recomputed score from the domain engine, not the on-screen preview — they should agree, but the report’s figure is the one that counts.
• I want the app to tell me if this material is asbestos. It can’t, and won’t try to — that determination needs a competent person’s presumption or a laboratory sample, never a photo classification.