asbestos?

[Fred]

Hello,

Downstairs we have a concrete floor on top of which are some thin but rigid "plastic" tiles. Unfortunately many are cracked, e.g. from carpet fitters hammering grips into them, uneven concrete underneath, etc.

I was hoping to remove them, in fact I did lift a few from around the edge of the room. They are glued on by some black bitumen like adhesive but they came up quite easily.

I have now read that asbestos was widely used in floor tiles. The house was built in the mid 1970s. I am wondering whether it is safe to remove the tiles?

I have read some websites and if I understand correctly, floor tiles can be removed by yourself and do not require notifying or professional removal. The danger seems to be if they are broken; some are already broken which is why I want to remove them and there is a danger (or even likelihood) they will snap in half when removed.

I did wonder about sending a tile for testing but one web site said if you had any tiles from before 1980 they would almost certainly contain asbestos and not to waste money having them tested. Is that so?

Does anyone recognise these tiles as being asbestos containing? I tried flickr but it wouldn't let me register, I couldn't work out why, so I uploaded them here instead:

than a mask and disposal at the asbestos skip at the tip, what other precautions should I take?

Thanks in advance.

[Peter Parry]

Perfectly. Some floor tiles of that period contained up to 7% Chrysotile (white asbestos) but it is heavily bound into the material so release of fibres even when broken is very low.

Correct.

Yes, simply assume they contain Chrysotile and handle accordingly. This involves simply making sure you minimise dust and heavy handling.

Don't bother, simply assume they are.

Keep the work area damp. Use a hand water mister to keep dust down. You can get a special "asbestos tile lifter" but all it is is a normal scraper on the end of a broom handle so you are not kneeling over the tiles as you lever them up. As you get them up put them in a strong polythene bag. Once you have levered up the tiles and bitumen if you are going to use self leveling compound to even out the floor consider using some PVA on the floor to bind all the dust. Otherwise wet it well and mop up the residue.

The risk is negligible.

[NT]

tiles can contain white asbetos, chrysotile, which is well bound by the rest of the tile material. As far as hazards go, its probably more dangerous to pop outside for a cigarette. Blue & brown asbestoses in unbonded state are nasty, bonded white asbestos is a very different animal.

NT

[Fred]

Thanks for the reassurance. I was particularly reassured by the "even when broken" part because my experience is they snap in half when lifted. I wasn't sure how much asbestos was in them, so it's nice to know it is a small and highly bound quantity. That said, I will still be careful.

Sorry, what does "heavy handling" mean: not smash them up more than necessary?

I never knew that. Where can I buy one from and are they expensive?

Should there be much dust? Reading above you implied that little should be released. So mop rather than brush because brushing might make the dust airborne? I presume the mop head has to be thrown away afterwards?

Thanks, I feel more confident about starting the job now. You hear all these terrible stories about it being the most deadly substance known to man. I have artex on most ceilings. I guess that contains some asbestos too? Why was it put in everything? Did they think it would prevent the spread of fires?

Thanks again.

[Fred]

Thanks for the reassurance. I guess the horror stories all relate to the blue and brown variety then? Which was used in brake linings? I remember when changing the pads on my car, reading warning about not inhaling dust.

[Peter Parry]

Don't throw them into a bucket from 20 paces and miss most of the time, don't smash them up enthusiastically with a hammer to make the bits smaller to fit more in a sack. You certainly do not need to carry each piece as if it is a bottle of nitro-glycerine on hot day.

Everything from asbestos specialists is expensive - just buy a scraper and a broom handle and fix them together or a Dutch Hoe such as

>consider using some PVA on the floor to bind all the dust. Otherwise wet it

There shouldn't be much at all but sometimes you find the concrete underneath wasn't well made and is breaking up into small particles because of heavy traffic over years. This isn't hazardous in itself but as you can't separate out the harmless dust from any which is potentially harmful it pays to keep both down.

Not really but as they cost so little it makes some sense to stick it in the last sack of waste.

The risk is, like most hazardous substances, heavily dose and exposure related. The people most at risk are the ones exposed to heavy concentrations over many years in industry.

It was a popular material because it was cheap, had excellent construction qualities and was a strong binder. Artex may contain some but the best way of dealing with that is simply to plaster over it.

[<me9]

I have a copy of childrens' Encyclopedia Britannica from the 50s. It lists asbestos as the wonder material, with new uses for it found every day.

[NT]

Loose dust is the problem, not asbestos fibre bound in cement or plastic. Brake pad wear resulted in loose asbestos dust. You can't really breathe in chunks of floor tile.

NT

[Fred]

...Unless the floor tile snaps and a fibre is released and the likelihood of that is low?

By the way, how big are these fibres? Can you see them with the naked eye?

Thanks to the reassurance here I have carefully lifted the tiles now. So thanks again. Before I posted I thought they were as dangerous as radioactive ones!

[Clot]

This is truly not a major problem. Asbestos, whatever form, was only an issue to those regularly exposed over a very long term measured in years to dust; usually, but not only, the workers with these materials.

We are going through another one of these paranoid stages with mercury at present. I suspect that this round of paranoia is being wound up by both the waste industry re striplight disposal and all the future disposal of all these energy efficient CFLs which have circa 5 mg from recollection and the guvmint needing to be seen to do something- in other words bugger all compared to that we were regularly exposed to in the past.

[<me9]

A single exposure can be enough. It takes many years to develop. A /single/ fibre can kill you, but multiple exposure will increase the risk. Regularly exposed(to blue and brown asbestos) workers were almost certain to suffer, and also a good chance of their family too, if they took overalls home to wash.

White asbestos is a smaller risk, If it is bound with other materials it is much less likely to be a problem.

The problem is the fibres break down to smaller and smaller fibres, which can penetrate and damage at sub cellular level. Other materials like glass fibre don't break down into smaller fibres so do not cause the same problems.

[NT]

the amount released is trivial. People working in clouds of asbestos dust for decades have a terrible death rate, but divide that down to

10 fibres from a floor 3 of which were breathed in, and the resulting number of deaths would almost certainly be less than one per entire history of humankind.

NT

[dennis]

You really don't understand asbestos do you? You must avoid exposure to the asbestos fibres, even a single fibre lodged in the lung can and has been shown to cause a painful death. Many of the people that died were not asbestos workers but their family members who were exposed to dust on clothing.

If you keep the dust down you are safe but just stating there is nothing to worry about is just plain daft.

BTW radioactive stuff is perfectly safe if you know how to handle it. There have been far fewer deaths in the nuclear industry than in the asbestos industry. You don't know how to handle radioactive stuff so you don't tell people how to handle it but likewise you don't know how to handle asbestos, but do tell people how to handle it.

[RobertL]

and don't do what I did (not knowing what they were at the time) cut through them with a circular saw when taking up the chipboard. :-(

Robert

[Peter Parry]

It "can", it is staggeringly unlikely to as almost everyone in the UK breathes several particles a day. Like most such substances dose and exposure are the key, high dose over a long time is risky, a low dose of short term exposure much less so. Asbestos is the greatest single cause of work-related deaths and the cause of insignificant numbers elsewhere.

Although lawyers like to push the "no safe level" claim (which is legally correct) there are minimum exposure levels for asbestos which are far from zero - typically the action level ( exposures to asbestos accumulated over a continuous 12 week period and expressed as fibre-hours per millilitre of air) for chrysotile is 72 fibre-hours per ml of air (e.g. spending 72 hours over a 12 week period in an atmosphere containing 1 fibre/ml of air). The Control Limit is a maximum exposure limit (MEL) i.e.a concentration of asbestos in air to which employees must not be exposed without wearing respiratory protective equipment. For Chrysotile: this is 0.3 fibres/ml of air averaged over any continuous 4 hours or 0.9 fibres/ml of air averaged over any continuous period of 10 minutes.

Breaking up floor tiles and dancing on the remains is unlikely to come anywhere near either of these levels. Indeed a single journey on the tube would probably expose you to more asbestos dust.

About 40% of asbestos miners and workers (those exposed to high concentrations of asbestos dust all their working day for years) will suffer some form of asbestos related disease. The risk to people who also smoked heavily is particularly great. The greatest cause of death from asbestos exposure is lung cancer (not mesothelioma). Of families, including those regularly handling asbestos contaminated clothes, a far smaller proportion were affected. Approximately 5 non-occupational exposure deaths from mesothelioma occur each year (compared with about 2,000 occupational cause deaths)

The problem was not that asbestos was highly dangerous in small doses but that it was used a great deal and processed in ways which generated vast amounts of dust. A moderate danger plus lots of people exposed meant a high number of deaths and injury.

[Bob Mannix]

No it hasn't, even if theoretically the case.

Which was almost exactly what "clot" said, so what are you arguing about?

[Peter Parry]

No it hasn't. What has occurred is that in court it is not possible to prove that one single exposure _did not_ cause asbestos related injury and that it is accepted that mesothelioma is indicative of asbestos exposure. This unusual situation, which makes suing companies without having to prove they caused the injury rather easy, is responsible for the enthusiasm lawyers have for asbestos. Mesothelioma was the best thing to happen to solicitors since the National Coal Board and many have run yachts and educated their children on it for years.

Mesothelioma can in fact come from a number of sources, it is common in some areas of Turkey where there are high natural occurrences of Erionite, one of the zeolites.

Asbestos isn't particularly special, it follows much the same dose/exposure/response relationship as many harmful substances. It makes sense to minimise exposure, it makes no sense to _worry_ about occasional exposure - you get it every day.

[Martin Bonner]

But asbestos *is* just as dangerous as radioactivity.

- Exposure can cause cancer

- There are different sorts, some of which are more dangerous than others

- If you are exposed to a lot of it, you are more likely to suffer

- If you are exposed to it for a long time, you are more likely to suffer

- There is a detectable amount of it in the natural environment

... so now you just need to be more relaxed about radioactiviy too :-)

[Man at B&Q]

but tiles containing asbestos *are not* as dangerous as radioactive ones might be.

MBQ

[dennis]

But some tiles are radioactive. Even some worktops are radioactive and people prepare food on them.