How To Know If There Is Asbestos In Flooring

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.

How to know if there is asbestos in flooring.

Talk to a previous owner or if you re renting the landlord and ask if the tiles contain asbestos. Gather information about the age of the tiles. With that in mind here are the keys to identifying asbestos floor tiles. Both these options will keep the asbestos trapped in the floor.

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. Asbestos tile was especially popular from the 1920s to the 1960s but production continued into the 1980s. Just keep in mind the asbestos will still be there if someone does demolition or renovation work in the future. 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.

Asbestos flooring was made into the 1980s though its heyday was the 1920s through the 1960s. Because linoleum was invented long before vinyl people often refer to both types of flooring as linoleum but there s a big difference. If your home is older there s an increased chance of the material being in the flooring or in other building materials. 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 you break the flooring into pieces while removing it you have. In older homes it is possible that asbestos tiles were removed and replaced during a home renovation or improvement project. 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. Resilient sheet flooring containing asbestos was also produced finding wide use as early as 1968.

Linoleum is an all natural floor covering composed of dried linseed oil wood dust cork and jute and it doesn t contain asbestos. How old is your tile. If you know when the building was built or renovated this might help you estimate when the tiles were installed.