tiles on concrete floor

[Sam]

Hello,

My house has those funny brown tiles on the concrete floor, I am about to fit a new floor: either wood or carpet, I haven't decided, and I am not sure whether to remove the tiles or not.

If they were all in place, it might be less hassle to leave them as they are but there are a few missing around the edges and I worry that this might cause my new floor to become uneven. Would you chisel them all up? A chisel on an sds drill should make this easy!

I heard they might contain asbestos. Is this true?

Thanks, Sam.

[Bob Mannix]

Rather depends what you mean by "funny brown tiles". If you mean 50's/60's brown vinyl-like thin tiles then I would leave them where they are and use levelling compund to fill the holes.

They can come up very easily or with a huge amount of difficulty.

We have some of these vintage at work (grey) and I discovered yesterday that they are counted by our maintenance department as "potentially containing asbestos" (which I didn't know before).

If you mean quarry tiles then none of the above appplies!

[Steve Firth]

It's possible. Much depends on what the "funny brown tiles" are. In the

1950s and 60s Ferodo the brake lining company marketed tiles and sheets of material known as "Ferasbestos" which was pretty much as it sounds. It was based on the material used to make brake linings, asbestos in a matrix of phenolic resin.

It was widely sold and made in a range of colours but brown seemed to be the most popular. I did hear that they made a version in a bizarre purple colour to be used for floors of buses and trains in countries where they chew betel nut, because the juice that people spit out is also purple.

[meow2222]

Whatever they are its going to be easier to just fill the gaps. If they're vinyl tiles, yes asbestos was standard, but its bound in the plastic so is harmless.

NT

[Derek Geldard]

Your mention of "those funny brown tiles" and talk of a chisel in an SDS drill prompts me to ask are these just quarry tiles, IE thickish, red to brown in colour made of fired clay frequently seen in the kitchens and hallways of ordinary houses built in the 20's and 30's ?

Looky here :

If so they won't contain asbestos. In fact I don't think any fired earth floor tiles contained asbestos, it wasn't necessary.

Plastic is something else but if they do contain asbestos it will be a small percentage only and bound in the plastic substrate. Safe to remove in whole pieces but don't sand them or saw them.

Derek

[Andrew Gabriel]

I took up my parents' kitchen floor, and it took ages. It was a mistake to start on it. They were glued down with some sort of tar glue. Used an old iron to soften it and they peeled up, but it took ages. (A steam wall paper stripper would probably work faster, but they didn't exist at the time.)

They do, but unless you take a sanding disk to them or something similar, it's not going to come out very easily.

[Sam]

I'm not sure what they are; they came with the house. The house was built in the mid 70's, if that's any clue?

They are not quarry tiles: these are very thin and not clay. They are not vinyl tiles like the plastic ones glue to the kitchen floor because these tiles are rigid rather than flexible.

The ones along the edge are loose, probably loosened when the carpet grips were fitted on top.

The concrete floor underneath is black, so it may be a bitumen adhesive but it is very dry. So being sticky/tacky would not be a problem.

I imagine a tap with a bolster chisel would lift them whole.

I could do with lifting a few from the edge because I am replacing a radiator and will have to get to the pipe which is buried in the floor.