Editorial policy
What we publish, and what we will not
This is safety content. Every licensing rule on this site carries its regulation number and links to the Health and Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations 2016 or to WorkSafe. Every price names the provider whose page it was read from and the date it was read. Where a source cannot be loaded, the claim stays out rather than being guessed. Claims we checked and will not publish are listed below.
The rules we write by
- Every licensing rule is cited. To the regulation on legislation.govt.nz, to WorkSafe, or to both. If we cannot cite it, it does not appear.
- Every price is sourced and dated. Named provider, their own page, the date we read it. Where a provider quotes GST-exclusive prices, we show the GST-inclusive equivalent so the comparison is like for like.
- We do not invent businesses, people, reviews, ratings, licence numbers or statistics. There are no testimonials, no star ratings, no job counts and no case studies on this site, because we have none that are real.
- We never claim to hold a licence or an accreditation. NZ Asbestos Removal is not a WorkSafe asbestos licence holder. Removal we arrange is carried out by licensed partners named, with their licence class and number, on each quote.
- We do not describe the risk in your particular house. The laboratory report speaks for the material sampled, and the clearance assessor speaks for the area. We report what they say.
- A dropped claim is better than a guessed one. Especially here. An asbestos rule that is nearly right can put someone in a room they should not be in.
- We re-check. The regulations and the WorkSafe guidance are re-read against their sources quarterly, and WorkSafe has said it is updating its asbestos guidance. Everything on this site was last checked on 15 September 2026.
- Articles are written by the organisation.There is no personal byline on this site and no link to anyone's personal website.
What we will not publish, and why
A lot of what circulates about asbestos work in New Zealand is unsourced, and some of the licensing rules people repeat are simply wrong. These are the claims we went looking at and would not put on the site.
| The claim | Why we will not publish it |
|---|---|
| “No WorkSafe notification is required for Class B work” | Wrong. Regulation 34 requires a licensed remover to notify WorkSafe in writing at least five days before licensed removal work starts, and that applies to Class A and Class B alike. |
| “No mandatory air monitoring or written clearance certificate for Class B” | Wrong on the certificate. Regulation 41 requires a clearance inspection after licensed removal — by an independent competent person for Class B rather than a licensed assessor — and regulation 42 says the area must not be reoccupied until a certificate is issued. Air monitoring by a licensed assessor is a Class A requirement (reg 43). |
| “Class A is required for any removal exceeding 10 m² of non-friable material” | Wrong class. More than 10 m² of non-friable asbestos, counted cumulatively across the removal project, is the Class B threshold (reg 56). Class A is about friable asbestos and contaminated dust or debris (reg 54), at any quantity. |
| “Up to 10 m² over the lifetime of the property” | The regulation counts cumulatively across the whole removal project at the site, not across the property's lifetime. |
| “Required by regulation 12” used for the Class B licensing threshold | Wrong regulation. Regulation 12 is the asbestos management plan. The Class B threshold is regulation 56. |
| “Permits owners to remove up to 10 m² provided appropriate PPE is used” | Misstates regulation 27, which is about who a PCBU may commission and requires a competent person trained under reg 17 even below the licence threshold. It is not a permission granted to homeowners, and WorkSafe separately says DIY removal is extremely dangerous. |
| A “2026 nationwide median” cost table for removal by job type, and per-material rates | No source. The only published New Zealand cost dataset we could find is CheckMyBuilder's, which we now cite by name with its figures and its update date rather than inventing our own. |
| Regional cost multipliers of 0.92 to 1.16, and regional population figures | No source exists for a regional asbestos cost multiplier that we could check, so we publish none. |
| Regional background claims: notification volumes by WorkSafe office, earthquake-related demand spikes, council consent-record claims, state-house suburb claims, holiday-home stock claims | All unsourced. Region pages carry only the sourced typical cost for that city and the rules, which do not change by region. |
| “Most pre-1990 New Zealand houses contain asbestos”, plus decade-by-decade probabilities | No source. WorkSafe's actual line is that a home built before 1 January 2000 may contain asbestos materials, which is what the guide says. |
| “Friable products were banned in the late 1980s and all asbestos imports by 2016” | The 2016 import prohibition is cited to the Order itself (in force 1 October 2016). A 'late 1980s friable ban' has no official source we could read, so that part stays out. |
| Sampling, survey, assessor and laboratory prices presented as typical New Zealand figures ($80–150 per sample, $150–250 sampling time, $400–900 surveys, $1,500–3,500 assessor work) | Unsourced. Every price on the site comes from a named provider's own published page with the date we read it. |
| “A licensed asbestos surveyor” | There is no such licence in New Zealand. The licences are Class A removal, Class B removal and asbestos assessor. Surveys are done by a competent person. |
| “Textured ceiling removal is usually treated as friable” | Unsourced generalisation about a material whose classification depends on its condition and on the laboratory result. Friability is what the surveyor and the laboratory determine, not what a website assumes. |
What we still do not publish
These are things people ask for that we have deliberately left out, because we could not source them:
- Per-material removal prices— a rate per square metre for roofing versus ceilings versus cladding. No New Zealand source for this was found. We publish CheckMyBuilder's tiers and per-square-metre range instead, cited.
- Council authorised disposal sites and their fees. Ask your council; WorkSafe says the same.
- A laboratory turnaround we promise. We show the published benchmarks — within 24 hours and 1–2 working days — and say plainly that ours depends on the laboratory account we sign.
- Regional cost multipliers and regional housing-stock statistics.
Corrections
If something on this site is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and record the change here. That matters more on asbestos than on almost anything else we could write about. Contact us.
Sources
- Health and Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations 2016
- WorkSafe, Asbestos licensing overview
- WorkSafe, Asbestos in the home
- WorkSafe, Managing asbestos in your building or workplace
- WorkSafe, We are updating our asbestos-related guidance
Every rule and price on this page was checked against its source on 15 September 2026.