Vinyl Sheet Flooring And Asbestos

Unfortunately vinyl sheet flooring manufactured with an asbestos backing poses a serious exposure risk when it is disturbed.

Vinyl sheet flooring and asbestos.

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. Removing old vinyl flooring techniques. Before you begin the project to remove old vinyl flooring in your home you need to determine if the flooring contains asbestos. 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.

This article describes sheet flooring products known to contain significant levels of asbestos. 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. Sheet vinyl flooring should be removed to avoid or minimize disturbance of the asbestos containing backing.

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.