Concrete garage removal: sectional garage dismantling and disposal

What a sectional concrete garage is

A sectional concrete garage is a prefabricated building assembled from precast concrete panels that slot into grooved concrete posts and bolt together at the corners. Nothing is mortared and nothing is structural in the way a brick garage is: the whole thing is a kit of parts sitting on a slab, held up by its own weight and a handful of bolts.

They were produced in enormous numbers from the early 1950s through to the mid 1980s, sold as a cheap, quick alternative to a masonry garage. Brands varied by region but the construction is near identical everywhere: vertical posts, horizontal or vertical wall panels roughly 600mm wide, a lightweight roof spanning the top on purlins, an up-and-over metal door at the front, and often a single steel-framed window in one side wall.

That kit-of-parts construction is good news at removal time. Because the panels were designed to be lifted into place by two people, they can be lifted back out by two people. A sectional garage does not need a machine, does not need scaffold and does not need the noise and dust of a masonry demolition. It needs a methodical crew working in the opposite order to the original build.

Why asbestos cement sheeting is so common in them

The roof is the part that most often contains asbestos. Through the whole period these garages were sold, corrugated asbestos cement was the standard roofing product: cheap, light, rigid, fireproof and rot-proof. It solved the exact problem the manufacturers had, which was spanning a garage width without heavy timber.

If your garage dates from before roughly 1985 and has grey corrugated sheets with a slightly fibrous, cement-like texture and no rust, assume asbestos cement until proven otherwise. Some later garages used fibre cement made without asbestos, and they look almost identical, which is why assumption rather than guesswork is the safe default. Occasionally the side panels contain asbestos too, though the roof is by far the most common location.

Bonded asbestos cement is low risk while it is intact and undisturbed. The danger comes from anything that breaks the bond and releases fibres: cutting with a disc cutter, snapping sheets to fit them in a van, dropping them, drilling them, or jet-washing moss off them. Every one of those is a routine DIY mistake, and every one of them turns a safe sheet into an airborne hazard.

Our approach is always the same. Sheets are unbolted, lifted whole, kept flat, double wrapped and taken to a facility licensed to accept asbestos waste with the correct consignment paperwork. It is priced as a separate visible line on your quote, never buried in the total, and never quietly skipped. See our glossary entry on asbestos cement sheeting for more detail.

How the panels are dismantled

1. Clear and assess. The garage is emptied, the roof material is identified, and the crew confirms where the load-out route runs and where the van or skip will sit.
2. Remove the door and window. The up-and-over door frame is often the only thing bracing the front elevation, so it comes out early but never before the roof is stabilised.
3. Strip the roof. Sheets are unbolted from the purlins working from one end, lifted flat and stacked or wrapped. This is the controlled, slow part of the job when asbestos is present.
4. Take out the wall panels. Panels are lifted vertically out of their post grooves, top row first, two people per panel. They are carried out rather than dropped, because a dropped panel shatters into far more material than it started as.
5. Lift the posts. Corner and intermediate posts are unbolted from the slab and removed last, once nothing is relying on them.
6. Deal with the base and clear down. The slab is broken out if you asked for it, the ground is raked, and the site is swept.

What happens to the base

Most sectional garages sit on a poured concrete slab between 75mm and 150mm thick, laid over compacted hardcore. You have three sensible options and they price very differently.

• Keep it. Cheapest option. A sound, level slab makes an excellent base for a new shed, a garden room, a hot tub or extra parking. We cut back the bolt stubs flush and leave it clean.
• Break it out. The slab is broken with a powered breaker into liftable pieces, loaded and taken for crushing into recycled aggregate. A single-garage slab is typically two to three tonnes, which is why this is a separate cost.
• Break out and grub up. The slab, the hardcore beneath it and any perimeter footings are removed, leaving soil you can actually plant into or build on. Choose this if the space is becoming lawn or garden.

Worth knowing: slab removal is almost always the single biggest weight in the job, so it is the line most affected by regional disposal gate fees.

Licensed disposal, and why it matters

Concrete panels, slab material and hardcore go to a permitted transfer station where they are crushed into recycled aggregate. Steel reinforcement is pulled out and baled for smelting. The metal door, window frames and any purlins go into the metal stream. Non-asbestos fibre cement follows the inert stream. Asbestos cement goes nowhere near any of it — it travels separately, to a site licensed to accept it, on its own consignment note.

This is not just good practice, it is your legal exposure. Householders hold a duty of care over their own waste in the UK and Ireland, and comparable rules apply elsewhere. If a cheap operator fly-tips your garage panels down a lane, the investigation traces back to the address that produced them. Always ask for the waste carrier registration and a waste transfer note.

Concrete garage removal cost bands

Figures below are typical price bands in local currency for the six countries we cover, based on a two-person crew. Your written quote is fixed before we attend, and nothing is added on the day.

Lead time is a minimum of five working days. Quotes are emailed in writing, normally within 24 hours of your enquiry and photos.

Frequently asked questions