Your home was built pre 1980.
Does my floor covering contain asbestos.
Some very old types of flooring that you may find in buildings that date back to the early 1900s have an attached rubber underlayment and this underlayment may contain asbestos.
On 2020 02 18 by lolly kerr.
It is safest to assume that any flooring material put down before 1980 contains asbestos.
In addition to testing other factors indicate that your flooring tiles may contain asbestos including.
The only way to make it a science is to hire a licensed asbestos inspector or by sending a sample to a lab to be tested but doing so can be costly and time consuming.
Without a manufacturer s label you can t tell whether a product has asbestos in it just by looking at it.
If the tiles or the floor beneath show oily discoloration the tiles very likely contain asbestos.
This type of flooring is dangerous because old underlayment tends to become flaky and crumbly and fibers can become airborne every time you sweep or vacuum with a non hepa vacuum cleaner.
Lolly that white backed sheet flooring could contain asbestos as does sometimes asphalt saturated felt underlayment.
Adding to modern confusion about which vinyl floor tiles from the 1950 s to 1980 s do or do not contain asbestos some lines such as the excelon supreme ca 1977 did not contain asbestos.
As you can see this method is not an exact science.