Asbestos surveys

The two kinds of survey

A management survey covers a building in normal occupation. A refurbishment or demolition survey is intrusive and is done before that work starts.

• Management survey. The building keeps being used. The surveyor locates and records asbestos that could be disturbed during normal occupation and maintenance, and the report feeds the asbestos management plan.
• Refurbishment or demolition survey. Intrusive, and done before the work. The surveyor opens up the areas the work will affect so nothing is found the hard way once demolition starts.
• Pre-purchase check. Not a regulatory category, but the common request: a look at a pre-2000 house you are about to buy, inside a due-diligence period. Asbestos Safe Consultancy publish this one from $269 plus GST.

Who actually needs one

Before a workplace structure is demolished or refurbished, a competent person must determine whether asbestos is present; a PCBU demolishing or refurbishing a home must identify the asbestos likely to be disturbed and, so far as is reasonably practicable, have it removed first. This is the duty an asbestos survey meets.

That duty falls on the PCBU: the builder, the landlord, the business. It does not fall on a homeowner-occupier doing work on their own home — see the DIY guide for why both of those things are true at once. The practical effect is that the moment you hire a builder for a pre-2000 house, your builder has a legal reason to want a survey, and the cost of not having one is a stopped job.

For landlords there is a second duty on top. Where asbestos is identified, or is likely to be present, at a workplace, the PCBU must identify it and keep a written asbestos management plan, kept up to date and reviewed at least every five years. WorkSafe says residential landlords must identify asbestos in their properties and prepare a management plan for any work that carries a risk of exposure.

What surveys cost

We do not publish a survey price, because we have not signed the consultancy subcontract that would let us stand behind one. What we can show you is the market, read off a New Zealand consultancy's own price page on 15 September 2026.

Those are one provider's "from" prices, GST exclusive, for small structures. A survey of a large or complicated building costs more. Treat them as a sense of the market, not as our quote.

Test or survey?

Most people who land here need the test, not the survey. If you have found one suspect ceiling, one run of cladding or one vinyl floor and you want to know what it is, the $249 test answers it. A survey is the right tool when you need a register rather than an answer: before a renovation of any size, before demolition, before buying, or because you are a landlord who needs a management plan.

If a survey finds asbestos you need gone, the next step is the same as after a positive test: a fixed written removal quote.

Ask for a survey quote

Tell us what the building is and what you are about to do to it. We come back with a fixed quote from a partner consultancy. There is no charge for asking and no obligation.