My house was built in 1946. I am worried about asbestos if I redo my kitchen or bathroom floors.
Does it probably have asbestos under there? If so, I'll probably have to just put the new tiles over the old floor, which will raise it up quite a bit.
Thoughts, ideas?
-cg
Don't even mess around with it. Call a professional and have them look at it. Otherwise you risk giving yourself serious health complications.
If it is ceramic tile you should be OK if it is a composite type, it is likely asbestos.
I wouldn't recommend DIY asbestos removal any more than I would recommend spending time in a smoky bar or going to the beach without sunscreen. But the asbestos/cancer studies all seem to be based on chronic, long term exposure. I question whether an individual taking some basic precautions (respirator, spray mist the area and immediately bagging the waste) would really put himself in significant danger with a one-time exposure.
The risk is extremely minimal.
Yes, there may be asbestos in those tiles, but mere contact is not a problem. People have lived and worked with them for years with NO ill effects. The asbestos in encapsulated safely in other materials.
You want to minimize breaking them. Let's look at this from a logical standpoint. There is a percentage of the tile that is asbestos. It is only when the fine fibers are airborne and inhaled that may cause any problem. Undisturbed, no problem at all. If the tile is removed and not broken, no harm at all. If broken, the chance that a fiber may get into the lung is very minimal as it is probably a part of a heavier portion that will sink, not float in the air.
Mass hysteria seems to be the biggest problem. Remove, bag, then landfill the tiles and you will be perfectly save. Don't grind them into dust.
Agree wholeheartedly. And, as long as one is careful to not create much airborne dust by doing stupid things like sanding it, I think the risk is minimal. Of course, the disposition of the trash/waste is another question if one is conerned of such niceties... :(
Well, of course. If your asbestos backed tiles were buried in a landfill, someday an unsuspecting backhoe operator might kick it up, inhale the airborn particulate and drop dead of lung cancer.
Jim Ranieri wrote: ...
Yep, that's the EPA's position as I understand it... :(
If I'm correct, you aren't supposed to put it in an unregulated trash disposal. Personally, I think it's absurd, but that's never stopped such rules before.
Depends on the form it is in. Siding and tiles, AFAIK are permitted. The flaky insulation must be handles in a particular manner and go to special landfills. There is information on the web at one of the government sites. Worth a shot with Google
I have the same problem in my house in the basement and on the slab (split level home) that I am currently renovating. The old green tile is coming up and getting thrown out. I talked to a couple of contractors I know in the business and they were pretty adamant that residential removal was not a problem, per statute (local, or federal I don't know).
Someone else pointed out to me that floor tile and siding materials are not the "flaky" type of asbestos used in buildings or insulation products, so not too much to risk with the right precautions.
What I mean is adequate ventilation and breating apparatus. For my situation I will have a cartridge breather and a window fan for gozoutas, with a back door open for gozintas. The forced air furnace will be turned off so as to not suck up any of that room air for recirculation. The cross breeze between the back door and window fan should create some positive air pressure in the room at the top of the small flight of stairs from the room I will be working in. That doorway will be sealed up with plastic.
I think I'm covered. Open to suggestions if anyone cares.
Thanks!
You will get advice from the squat-to-pee types that anything to do with asbestos is a disaster in the making.
There has never been a demonstrated health risk from any commercial product containing asbestos - including brake shoes where the dust is like smoke! Floor tiles, ceiling tiles, siding, gloves, insulation, nothing in the use, manufacture, or disposal of said items has ever been proven to be a hazard.
Dig up the tiles. Leave them in a schoolyard during the dark of the moon.
If you wait a few months, I might be able to help. I'm working on an invention, asbestos-filled breast implants, and will need raw materials.
You have 2 choices:
1) call in "experts" in their white hazmat uniforms, who will charge you $10,000 to remove the old floor after wrapping the whole house in multi-layers of plastic sheeting, hepa filters, etc. 2) Toss some new flooring down over the old floor. Use a bit of leveling compound first if needed. Enjoy your new floor and enjoy the $9,500+ that you saved.Good luck, Gideon
Ditto
Asbestos, especially that kind of asbestos, is only dangerous if you work with it for a living. As a one-shot deal, wax the floor, put on a good respirator, take the tile out, put down new tile, put the old tile and debris in paper sacks. And wash every surface in the house.
Then either: Find someone with a decent sized cabin cruiser, cruise about a mile and a half offshore, check for the coast-guard planes, and dump them overboard. or: Dig a hole at least 5' deep, and bury them. Put an old broken pistol and some ammo in a plastic bag with them, so that when the feds dig up your yard, they'll be so excited about the "arms cache" that they'll forget to test for toxic waste.
--Goedjn PS. Don't actually do any of the above, it's all illegal, and will get you jailed for the rest of your life, which will be drastically forshortened on account of the lethal substances you've exposed yourself to.
And your little dog, too.
The trick is to not break the tiles when taking them out.
One way to work around this is to use dry ice.
Make a frame out of 2x4's to hold the dry ice.
Take the frame with the dry ice and put it over each square. The glue on the bottom of the tile will weaken and the tiles will come right off. (in one piece no less)
If you are lucky the glue will stay mostly on the tile too.
If you dont plan on doing it this way, make sure to at least wet down the tiles prior to you taking them off to minimize dust when they break.
Tom
Tile asbestos was like 5% and "white". It's always safer to cover it if you have the room. Rule of thumb: fiberglas is a thousand times worse than sand and white asbestos is a thousand times worse than fiberglass but blue asbestos (on steam pipes, ships and skyscraper beams) is a thousand times worse than that.
Contractors never listen to engineers unless the engineer breathes down their neck, so nothing would surprise me, but I can't imagine a bathroom having asbestos tile. I've never seen anything other than ceramic or actual stone in bathrooms.
My late mom put linoleum in the kitchen in 1987 and the contractor refused to glue or nail it to the asbestos tile and just put in extra moulding around the wall to hold it in place. Fridge repair distorted the linoleum in 1992 and it's been bubbly ever since. The moulding was too small. Replacing the top-blowing 1965 fridge in 2002 with a bottom-blower causes the linoleum to shift with the climate.
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