Vinyl Asbestos Sheet Flooring

This article describes sheet flooring products known to contain significant levels of asbestos.

Vinyl asbestos sheet flooring.

Vinyl resin sheet flooring asbestos backed medium or heavy gauge. However you re not completely in the clear because asbestos was a common ingredient in the mastic used to hold these flooring materials to the subfloor. If you are removing the original vinyl floor from a home prior to 1980 you will need to locate a licensed asbestos abatement contractor to test your floor. We describe sources of asbestos in older forms of sheet flooring including felt backed flooring rubber backed flooring and vinyl cushion backed resilient flooring products.

In north america if asphalt or vinyl floor tiles or sheet flooring were made or installed before 1986 treat the floor as presumed to contain asbestos. To identify a particular asphalt asbestos or vinyl asbestos floor tile pattern color start in the image group most likely to be the same age as your building. Easy to keep clean. Asbestos vinyl flooring was a durable and economical material that offered many aesthetic options to suit a homeowner s taste.

Like floor tiles vinyl sheet flooring is a long lasting and economical material and it also offers more aesthetic options to suit a homeowner s taste. Asbestos vinyl sheet flooring can be more dangerous to remove than tiles if proper precautions are not practiced. Many colors and designs. Asbestos removal is a hazardous process best undertaken only by a qualified professional.

The thicker the vinyl wear layer thickness the longer the material will be expected to wear. Highly resistant to grease and alkalies. While asbestos is useful as a binding agent in the manufacture of vinyl and rubber floor coverings it isn t needed to make linoleum tiles or sheet flooring. Asbestos vinyl sheet flooring has two layers a top layer of vinyl and a bottom layer made from paper that contains asbestos.

We are told that the paper layer can contain from 40 to 70 percent asbestos. Prior to the 1980s asbestos vinyl sheet flooring was very popular in homes. Asbestos was used in vinyl wallpaper from the 1920s and in the vinyl floor tiles and sheet flooring that rose to prominence in the 1950s. Asbestos containing sheet flooring or resilient flooring product identification.

The asbestos floor tile identification articles in this series illustrate that with the combination of design appearance and an idea of floor tile age many asbestos containing floor tiles or sheet flooring products can be reliably identified even before confirmation by a test by a certified asbestos testing laboratory.