The sturdy fence posts came from the nearby state forest where the rangers had marked jarrah trees with the disease dieback (Phytophthora cinnomomi, a water borne mould [mold to Americans]) I was given a permit to bring down marked trees, and using my chainsaw brought back several loads of excellent fence posts.
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| The chook pen in 2014 |
I used the standard chicken wire with a perimeter of wire mesh along the ground to discourage predators.
A few years later I improved the roof with several layers of decrepit corrugated panels given to me by my friend May Ellison. The panels were made of asbestos which I treated with respect but did not see a problem in the long run.
It my chicken heyday I had 24 hens and 3 roosters. When I lost interest in keeping chickens my good friends Dode and George from next door took over, feeding the reduced flock of chickens their copious amounts of high-quality leftovers. (Leftovers so good that many times I would take some of them for myself because I would no have my chooks eating better than me.) Now, alas, Darlington has become gentrified and I have not heard a rooster crowing for more than 20 years.
Several months ago I realized that the chook pen represented a wasted asset. It had a water tap, an excellent cement foundation, great views, and could be turned into a nice sitting once I reinstate the vegetable garden. Also, there was a separate storage area in which I could store my three lawn mowers, fridge trolley, and other items that are contributing to the clutter of the garage.
Cleaning up over 20 years of unrestricted vegetation growth took several days of hard, dusty work that wreaked havoc with my immune system.
Then the fence had to be removed, which was made more difficult by the vine-like tendrils that held the fencing firmly on the ground. After several sessions of work I was able to finish the job by taking all of the old wire fencing and two metal gates to the tip.
Then came the hard part: removing the asbestos.
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| The Work Site |
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| Loaded Up |
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| Tarped and Strapped |
I started by checking the legal requirements on the web, the fundamental one being that all asbestos must be wrapped in two layers of plastic. Carting the asbestos as full sheets was not practical because too much expensive plastic sheeting would be required. Also, there would be difficulty in using a fork lift to unload the heavy sheets. The only practical method would be to package the asbestos in manageable parcels. My trailer has a bed of roughly 5' x 4' so I decided to fit two packages per layer. Cutting the asbestos to size would be a problem. I purchased a roll of extra heavy duty plastic sheeting from Bunnings along with a roll of broad tape made for the sheeting and got to work.
It took many hours of patient wearing a respirator, gloves, and full length clothes. Fortunately I was able to take advantage of the breeze by ensuring that most of the time I was upwind of the activity. I did not want to cut the sheets with a disc because it would produce a nightmare of fine asbestos dust. A bolster (broad blunt chisel) with a heavy hammer did not work and I finally settled on snapping the ends of the sheets with my foot. I would lay down a rectangle of sheeting, stack the pieces of asbestos to the limit of what I could handle, then painstakingly tape up the package. Each packaged took an hour of work, and from memory there were ten packages.
This morning I took the load to the Red Hill Waste site, which is licensed to handle asbestos. My car and trailer were weighed then I was directed to the unloading area. The chap there was very pleasant to work with. He confirmed that the wrapping was satisfactory and we proceeded to transfer the packages from the trailer to a pallet on his fork lift. While we worked I asked him if he got many cases of improperly packaged asbestos. He said that it happens all of the time and he immediately sends the drivers away. He told me the typical story of a guy who pulled up in a station wagon, put on a respirator after he got out of the car, announced that he had a load of asbestos, and the fork lift driver saw that the asbestos had not been covered in any way. Before the guy drove off he removed his respirator, not thinking that he would be in the confined space of his moving car breathing in asbestos fibers.
The numbers that the fork lift driver gave me were startling. Every day (7 days per week) he handles 25 to 30 tons of asbestos, and at the section of the site that deals with heavy loads they handle 50-70 tons per day. That is a lot of asbestos, which is good news in a way because it means that the city is steadily purging itself of asbestos that permeated every aspect of life when I arrived in Australia in 1966.
As for me, for once I did everything right in this operation. I had to because of the heavy legal, health, and social issues. I used the correct safety equipment and procedures, the correct packaging materials, selected the appropriate package dimension and weight for handling, and even selected the quietest and safest route to the disposal site. OK, maybe I overdid it with the tying down, but like I told the man, I could not risk a packaged falling onto the road and breaking open.
For me this was a good The only asbestos left on this property is on the shed near the boundary to the school. I will one day be able to tackle that job with confidence.
The receipt states that I delivered 0.4 tons of asbestos. The charge was a surprisingly low $38.20.
My next task will be to remove the corrugated iron walls of the shed then replace some white ant (termite) affected timbers before re-roofing and re-cladding the shed and fitting new doors. Oh yea, I've got to remove the fence posts too.
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