Asbestos Quandary: Should You Remove Asbestos Floor Tiles
Our 1980s era house does not have asbestos floor tiles. However this issue and many related ones have kept me away from blogging and anything else to do with our own home lately. That's because I've been serving on a floor replacement committee at my church, and dealing with some very interesting issues.
While my experience in home remodeling (via the many projects we have taken on in our homes) has come in handy while serving on this committee, something I had not had to deal with in our houses was asbestos. However, this did come up when my parents bought their 1901 Victorian home. In their case, the asbestos was located in insulation on the heating pipes in the basement. I have memories of the basement being sealed off with plastic and men in protective coveralls, gloves and head gear carrying out the sealed garbage bags. I was glad that most of the spider webs went with them!
The asbestos problem at the church is different. In fact, it was debatable whether it was even necessary for us to deal with the asbestos tiles at this point. The asbestos tile flooring dates back to circa 1920, and in the intervening years had been covered with other layers. Most recently, when the mauve carpet was installed in the 1980s, a new particle board layer was placed on top of the other floors, then the carpet.
We were pretty sure, because of the date of the floor, that those old tiles were in fact asbestos, but we had to have it tested to confirm it. Core samples were drilled all over the building. The tests confirmed asbestos in the main body of the church, the sacristy and the altar boy’s room.
So should we remove the asbestos? That was the hot topic. Asbestos floor tiles are not so dangerous as something like asbestos insulation, which more easily goes airborne, which everyone knows due to the legal ads on TV, causes mesothelioma. Asbestos tiles are hard and don't break very easily. The fibers are not likely to end up floating around in the air, so the chance of someone inhaling an asbestos particle into their lung and getting cancer is much less likely.
Moreover, the asbestos was completely covered by several layers of flooring and subflooring. It was not dangerous. But knowing it was there, and many people either suspected or knew it was there, some church goers might be worried about it.
For our floor committee the point that tipped the scale toward removing the asbestos tiles had to do not so much with mesothelioma or any other danger from asbestos, but with providing a good structure for our new floor. We had decided to replace the carpeting with porcelain tile, and with that much square footage, we were concerned about cracks from deflection. We could reduce risk of cracking if we had a nice solid base with no decaying layers of old flooring beneath it. The fact that we were taking care of the asbestos issue for now and all time was an added benefit. I'm happy to say that our church has gotten in the habit of biting the bullet and doing it right the first time when we take on projects. (It's a lesson learned the hard way.) So the asbestos tiles are being removed by an asbestos abatement crew. Every door to the church is sealed. But when all is said and done, the floor will be taken down to the original wood. Then the cement backer board will be installed, and the tile on top of that, so we should be set for a hundred years or so.
