Asbestos inventory in Flemish Brabant

Anyone in Flemish Brabant who is about to renovate or demolish, or who manages a building as an employer, needs an asbestos inventory, not just a certificate. That applies to the business premises on the industrial estates around Leuven and Vilvoorde just as much as to a house being thoroughly renovated. We draw up the inventory in the right format, with a management programme where that is required, and work with an accredited laboratory for the sampling.

What does a management programme contain?

The management programme sets out, for each asbestos-containing material in the asbestos inventory, what happens to it, within what period, and who follows it up.

The obligation to have a management programme comes from book VI, title 3 of the code on well-being at work. That is federal legislation: it applies throughout Belgium, so no differently in Flemish Brabant than anywhere else. As soon as you employ staff, you need an asbestos inventory for the buildings you manage, with a management programme alongside it.

The asbestos inventory says where a material is and what condition it is in. The management programme is the list of rules that follows from it, one per material. An example of such a rule: corrugated sheets on the warehouse roof, do not drill or sand, no pressure washing, visual check during the annual round. A second rule might cover damaged pipe insulation in the boiler room: close the room to maintenance staff and have the removal carried out by an accredited firm.

Every measure comes with a deadline and a responsible person. Without those two, nobody knows by when the check has to happen or to whom a cracked sheet should be reported. The file states, for each measure, who carries it out and by when. If something changes internally, you update those names.

How often do you have to update the asbestos inventory?

Once a year, and in addition whenever something changes about an asbestos-containing material or about the building itself.

Updating means checking whether the findings still hold. A corrugated sheet that was intact last year can be weathered after a winter. A pipe that sat behind a duct is exposed once the plumbing has been replaced. Whatever is found afresh goes into the file, and the measures in the management programme are adjusted accordingly.

In practice that means a check round and an adjustment of the existing file, not a completely new one. If a building has been thoroughly renovated or material has been removed, that part is looked at again. That adjustment does not wait for the annual round: it happens as soon as the work is finished.

The obligation hangs on the buildings you manage, not on your registered office. If you manage a workshop in Vilvoorde and a depot in Tienen, both buildings belong in the file, each with its own inventory and its own measures.

What does the contractor need before starting work on your building?

An asbestos inventory of the zone he is working in, because he cannot drill, grind or demolish in material that nobody knows contains asbestos or not.

Whoever has work carried out gives the contractor the asbestos inventory of the building beforehand. That applies to an employer bringing an external firm onto the site, and equally to a client having a house or a shed converted. The contractor is an employer himself: he has to know where the asbestos is before he puts his people to work.

Even without demolition work someone can damage the material. Pulling a cable through a wall panel, ripping out an old floor covering, replacing a boiler with insulated pipework: in all those cases dust is released if the material contains asbestos. With the inventory the contractor knows in advance which sheet he leaves in place, and which material is removed first by an accredited firm.

If it is a renovation or a demolition, have the inventory drawn up while the planning is still open. If material turns up that has to be removed, the accredited firm needs time of its own, and that step comes before the rest of the work.