Sheet Vinyl Flooring Asbestos Paper Backing

Asbestos vinyl sheet flooring can be more dangerous to remove than tiles if proper precautions are not practiced.

Sheet vinyl flooring asbestos paper backing.

Make sure to cut all the way down to the floor so your sample includes flooring backing and adhesive. Asbestos vinyl sheet flooring poses a significantly greater asbestos exposure risk than floor tiles or wallpaper. We are told that the paper layer can contain from 40 to 70 percent asbestos. One armstrong world industries vinyl resilient sheet flooring product thought to have been installed in 1967 was tested in a lab and found to contain 70 percent asbestos.

Unfortunately vinyl sheet flooring manufactured with an asbestos backing poses a serious exposure risk when it is disturbed. The backing of the vinyl sheet didn t crumble or anything like that but it did separate when i ripped the sheet off the floor. My father wasn t particularly concerned about this when i asked him. This will entail peeling the sheet vinyl from the flooring beneath if the backing does not separate in the process or removing the sheet vinyl in sections with the underlayment attached.

My concern is that there may be asbestos behind the sheet vinyl perhaps in the paper backing or glue adhesive. Such products some sold under the brand name solarian were installed as recently as 1980 long after governmental restrictions on asbestos were initiated. The backing would be one suitable for use as a surface covering for example a felt perferably a rubber bonded asbestos backing a vinyl sheet backing a cellulosic felt or other backing which lendsitself to surface covering applications. Remove a piece of floor molding or a floor heat register to access an edge of the sheet vinyl flooring.

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. But other asphalt impregnated felt products and floor backers did contain asbestos so unless you have had a lab test performed it would be prudent to assume that the material contains asbestos. Sheet vinyl flooring should be removed to avoid or minimize disturbance of the asbestos containing backing. Manufacturers often made this type of flooring with a friable asbestos backing which means asbestos fibres are easily released into the air if the sheet flooring is disturbed or damaged.

He said that asbestos in flooring was more in the 1950s and thought that the sheet vinyl was probably a replacement floor anyway. With a utility knife and while wearing rubber gloves cut a one inch long 1 8th inch wide sliver of sheet vinyl flooring. At asphalt based sheet flooring we report that some tests of red backed asphalt core vinyl sheet flooring found that the floor did not contain asbestos.