How To Tell If There Is Asbestos In Flooring

If you break the flooring into pieces while removing it you have.

How to tell if there is asbestos in flooring.

Gather information about the age of the tiles. They may not know for sure but they may be able to tell you the age of the tiles which will be a good indicator. To determine if your building has asbestos check areas where the material was most commonly used like the roof bathroom and basement. Because linoleum was invented long before vinyl people often refer to both types of flooring as linoleum but there s a big difference.

Armstrong produced the excelon tile series beginning with a plastic asbestos floor tile series in 1954 referring to the product as vinyl plastic asbestos floor tiles beginning in 1955 and vinyl asbestos tiles from 1957 to 1980. While it can be costly to do so the safest course of action is to assume that there is in fact asbestos in your tiles and get it treated especially if your floor was installed in the. If floor tiles were installed between 1920 and 1960 there s a good chance they contain asbestos because most flooring tiles manufactured during this period did. If your building was constructed after 1995 it likely won t contain asbestos but if it was made between the 1940s and 1980s there is a good chance that it does.

In older homes it is possible that asbestos tiles were removed and replaced during a home renovation or improvement project. If you know when the building was built or renovated this might help you estimate when the tiles were installed. Talk to a previous owner or if you re renting the landlord and ask if the tiles contain asbestos. With that in mind here are the keys to identifying asbestos floor tiles.

If you have a newer home you likely don t have any asbestos inside. 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. Both these options will keep the asbestos trapped in the floor. Resilient sheet flooring containing asbestos was also produced finding wide use as early as 1968.

Just keep in mind the asbestos will still be there if someone does demolition or renovation work in the future. Linoleum is an all natural floor covering composed of dried linseed oil wood dust cork and jute and it doesn t contain asbestos. Asbestos tile was especially popular from the 1920s to the 1960s but production continued into the 1980s. If you decide to remove nonfriable vinyl asbestos flooring you have to be cautious for two reasons.