Vinyl Flooring Over Asbestos

So after much reading on asbestos tile and due to my limited budget i ve decided to just cover them with traffic master floating laminate flooring but everyone i ve talked to has said they won t install the flooring with the asbestos tiles.

Vinyl flooring over asbestos.

Asbestos vinyl flooring was a durable and economical material that offered many aesthetic options to suit a homeowner s taste. You could also seal it with a coat of epoxy floor paint. One of the biggest factors of installing a new floor over the old is thickness. Asbestos is a mineral that lends fireproofing qualities to any substance it is mixed with.

Our photo left shows armstrong excelon 12x12 vinyl asbestos flooring made in 1972 identified in our floor tile photo guide asbestos floor tile identification photos 1949 1959 detailed photo guide to asphalt asbestos and vinyl asbestos floor tiles and resilient flooring produced in 1900 1980. That means it is safe to walk on but not safe to scrape sand or use power tools on. In many cases installing a new floor over the tiles encapsulates the asbestos fibers and is an acceptable way to manage the material. Flooring over asbestos tile hello.

If you aren t removing the old floor you may be creating a new floor that is too thick for doors to open and shut or for thresholds to have clearance. In many cases the best thing to do about vinyl asbestos flooring is put a new layer of flooring on top of it. What are asbestos floor tiles. If you are hiring a flooring company they may be hesitant to work around asbestos tiles.

But the flooring companies aim wasn t so much to make the floor tiles fireproof as it was to make the tiles more durable. For about 35 years flooring companies included asbestos when they manufactured the vinyl tiles. Some of the flooring tiles have come off and you see. Unfortunately vinyl sheet flooring manufactured with an asbestos backing poses a serious exposure risk when it is disturbed.

Vinyl tile is an excellent option for sealing in asbestos tiles. Like floor tiles vinyl sheet flooring is a long lasting and economical material and it also offers more aesthetic options to suit a homeowner s taste. That said it can be difficult to get a level surface for the new floor especially if the old tiles have chipped away. But when vinyl asbestos flooring is in good condition it is considered nonfriable.

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.