Vinyl Flooring Over Asbestos Tile

But removing the tiles can disturb this trapped asbestos so the best strategy is painting over asbestos.

Vinyl flooring over asbestos tile.

Over time asphalt which was a main ingredient in asbestos tiles can degrade and cause the tiles to look grimy or discolored in spots. Unlike many asbestos containing materials vinyl asbestos flooring is generally safe to be around. Vinyl is a type of plastic that has long been a popular material for floor tiles and sheets. Installing vinyl flooring is a similar process.

In many cases installing a new floor over the tiles encapsulates the asbestos fibers and is an acceptable way to manage the material. Fortunately it is not difficult to install vinyl tile over your vinyl floor as. Installing ceramic or porcelain tile over asbestos tile. Vinyl tile is an excellent option for sealing in asbestos tiles.

Some of the flooring tiles have come off and you see. 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. No other specialized prep work or treatment is necessary. But the flooring companies aim wasn t so much to make the floor tiles fireproof as it was to make the tiles more durable.

One of the biggest factors of installing a new floor over the old is thickness. For about 35 years flooring companies included asbestos when they manufactured the vinyl tiles. Asbestos is a mineral that lends fireproofing qualities to any substance it is mixed with. Most 9 inch vinyl tiles and many 12 inch tiles and the mastic adhesive that anchors them to the subfloor contain a level of asbestos.

The good news is that the harmful fibers are securely embedded into the vinyl material so under normal conditions the fibers aren t released into the air. Unfortunately vinyl sheet flooring manufactured with an asbestos backing poses a serious exposure risk when it is disturbed. This is trickier as you can t simply slap mortar down on top of old asbestos tile put down the new tile and expect a good result. 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.

But that changes as soon as you decide to remove it.