Asbestos Vinyl Sheet Flooring

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.

Asbestos vinyl sheet flooring.

We include research citations on asbestos use in sheet flooring backer materials. This fact sheet provides information regarding asbestos backed vinyl sheet flooring and vinyl tiles containing asbestos. Asbestos vinyl sheet flooring has two layers a top layer of vinyl and a bottom layer made from paper that contains asbestos. Even some of the early peel and stick tiles used asbestos as the main ingredient.

What is asbestos backed vinyl sheet flooring. A majority of the vinyl flooring made before 1986 contained asbestos in the tiles or in the backing materials. We describe sources of asbestos in older forms of sheet flooring including felt backed flooring rubber backed flooring and vinyl cushion backed resilient flooring products. Asbestos backed vinyl sheet flooring is where the backing the side attached to the floor see figure 1 contains friable easily broken asbestos material.

Click here to read more. We are told that the paper layer can contain from 40 to 70 percent asbestos. Mixing asbestos into vinyl floor tiles made them more insulating and resistant to damage. Asbestos vinyl sheet flooring can be more dangerous to remove than tiles if proper precautions are not practiced.

However you re not completely in the clear because asbestos was a common ingredient in the mastic used to hold these flooring materials to the subfloor. It also was installed over tongue and groove wood floors particleboard and plywood. It is possible to make a tentative identification of floor tiles based on the individual tile pattern color and thickness. Vinyl asbestos floor tiles were produced by a number of manufacturers and the decorative tile patterns were varied often annually as styles and tastes changed.

Unfortunately vinyl sheet flooring manufactured with an asbestos backing poses a serious exposure risk when it is disturbed. Asbestos backed sheet vinyl flooring was commonly installed in many ways including over hardwood softwood and concrete floors. As with any asbestos containing material acm the first step to finding asbestos in linoleum sheet flooring and vinyl tiles is. The removal procedures described in this publication address the removal of asbestos backed sheet vinyl only if.

Asbestos vinyl sheet flooring poses a significantly greater asbestos exposure risk than floor tiles or wallpaper.