How To Tell If Floor Tiles Are Asbestos

Workers must take many precautions to remove asbestos floor tiles safely and it is always safest to leave asbestos removal to qualified professionals.

How to tell if floor tiles are asbestos.

Asbestos in floor tiles. But if you have a home built before the mid 20th century there is a good chance that the floor tiles contain asbestos. In floor tiles asbestos is used primarily for its insulation properties and its ability to resist fire in addition to the tiles themselves a layer of mastic a type of adhesive below the tiles is also likely to contain asbestos. Asbestos found in the vinyl floor tiles at the toh tv project house means a state licensed and well protected abatement crew must do the removal.

As time goes by and more homes are remodeled fewer homes contain asbestos tiles. Tiles that are disintegrating should be. The risk for many people who live or work in buildings with old flooring is that it s hard to know if the building has asbestos floor tiles just by looking. 9 x9 12 x12 and 18 x18.

Asbestos floor tiles will not release toxic fibers and pose a health risk unless they are disturbed. You can t see it if the floor is intact but you can spot the black adhesive if some of the tiles have already popped off the floor. Asbestos floor tiles were manufactured in three sizes. The asbestos floor tile identification articles in this series illustrate that with the combination of design appearance and an idea of floor tile age many asbestos containing floor tiles or sheet flooring products can be reliably identified even before confirmation by a test by a certified asbestos testing laboratory.

Many older homes have asbestos tiles for flooring. Asbestos is actually a silicate based material that used to be commonly used in building construction for surfaces as common as walls or floor tiles. If you have loose floor tiles and see the black. Photo by russell kaye i m told that the old vinyl floor tiles in the basement of our 1950 house contain asbestos and that i should not try to remove the tiles but cover them with wall to wall.

Examine the condition of the tiles. The tiles may have asbestos too. Intact asbestos tiles are not a major risk and can in fact be left in place and covered with other materials such as carpet vinyl linoleum or concrete. Sanding sawing drilling or tearing the tiles out however can release fibers into the air.