Our house was built in 1925. My husband is removing our bathroom floor tiles that haven‘t been touched since then...we had only vinyl tiles on top of the old. He discovered these tiles are extremely difficult to take out they are very hard tiles under the vinyl we have now. Then when he tried to remove the hard tiles he had to remove concrete like stuff and sand like stuff. It‘s been one hell of a job just to remove everything. He went down to the foundation of the house! I just started worrying now about asbestos. I remember how old homes have them. Is it possible there is asbestos in these? There is a lot of dust in the house because of the removal process. Anyone know? I have two small kids and I‘m petrified. I‘ve heard of vinyl tiles having them, but what about the other stuff in our floors?
No. That is just old tiles hardened due to age.
Old tile can have asbestos. The ONLY way to know is to take a piece of each with glue/mastic on the back to a local lab to have it tested. You can not determine absolutely or not if asbestos is present by size, color, or texture. If he has already thrown it away, all you can do is wet clean the entire area and move on. If you can afford it, hiring an asbestos removal company to do it would be better or hire an asbestos consultant to checkk the area.
If it is confirmed that your bathroom floor tile have a asbestos, try to consider this precautions. If you are removing asbestos floor tiles yourself, try to minimize the risk of asbestos fibers getting into the air. Never sand asbestos floor tiles or the glue under it. And don't use any power tool that could damage the tiles. Before removing the tiles, soak the entire floor with plenty water for at least 30 minutes. If some fibers get free, they will be too heavy to float if they are water-soaked, If there is dust while removing the tiles, never use a vacuum cleaner. They will not trap asbestos fibers and reintroduce them into the air. All cleaning should be done with a soaking wet mop. All materials used for cleaning should be transferred immediately to polythene bags and tightly sealed for disposal. Do label these polythene bags appropriately, it is always better and safer to rely on professionals when it comes to getting your asbestos flooring changed. They know exactly how the flooring was put, and how best to remove it. They will ensure that no / minimum asbestos fibers get into the air while changing the flooring. Also disposing and getting rid of the asbestos tiles as per your state rules will be taken care of by them.
You can put things over the asbestos but if you ever sell the house it'll cost y you. It's very expensive to remove asbestos because if you break it up and disturb it in the removal process everything has to be sealed off. I'm guessing a few grand to do that job. If you don't plan on ever selling you can just tile over it with little issue. You may not have to abate the asbestos if you sell but if you sell without telling them it's in there you can get into a lawsuit so be aware. He is right about it being only harmful if disturbed though.
Asbestos was used in everything: insulation, wall plaster, flooring, etc. But mostly in industrial setups (think fireproofing). Homes more often than not only had flooring and insulation that sometimes contained it. Most did not. 10s of Millions of people have been exposed and a few tens of thousands developed conditions due to it. About the same ratio have developed cancer due to fiberglass and that is considered to be safe by lawmakers. Asbestos related diseases happen so rarely that they can't even guess what the incident rate might be. Radon is proven to be at least 10x more dangerous. My opinion is you have nothing to worry about as long as no rubbish company tests the material and finds it positive. If you want to know, it costs about 20 to 30 dollars per item tested plus whatever fees they might collect to collect the test items. Actually you should be more concerned about lead in the paint. Any painted surface that was around back then will definitely have lead.
