Damp solid floor and possible asbestos tiles. Cost?

So our house is a 200 year old building which prior to be converted to a house was a pub.

The people we bought from did a full renovation.

It seems that they spent a lot of money at the beginning and seemed to run out of money for the finishing, poor quality carpets, shabby fencing etc. but very high end windows and doors etc.

So the front room/2nd living room isn’t a space we use that much and it’s seemed to have a slight damp issue, which has gradually got worse. Noticed some mould on some books close to the floor the other day.

I pulled up the corner of the carpet and low and behold, some very old vinyl tiles below the underlay.

My guess is when they were finishing things off they didn’t go to the expense of removing the tiles and treating the solid floor and just dumped the carpet on top.

What sort of cost is it to remove those dodgy tiles so we can treat or seal the floor?

Is it feasible to suit and mask up and DIY? Using proper a HEPA mask not some COVID paper one? I know that may sound crazy to some but I’m happy to take the risk and use the correct PPE.

Get a sample tested for asbestos first before deciding?

Agree with irc, get it tested. We walk away from quotes if we spot asbestos we’d have to disturb. Horrible stuff and not worth the risk down the line.

If you can get the tiles tested I would. Don’t mess with asbestos – if they are that then pay the money and get it sorted properly. I know someone whose husband died of asbestosis.

There are three possible issues with a floor:

Asbestos containing floor tiles (sometimes known as Marley tiles) are common in 30+ year old properties, including homes, schools, hospitals, etc. and are generally considered low risk
Asbestos containing paper backing
Asbestos containing adhesive

Ask the asbestos analysis company about sampling methods, especially if you suspect paper backing. The tiles and the adhesive tend to retain fibres unless they are crumbling. The paper (if present) is probably the greatest risk because it sheds fibres more easily and is notifiable work.

@timba – When you say “Asbestos containing paper backing” is that a paper backing on the actual tiles?

That’s my understanding.

IANAE, I worked in a school with them, my knowledge is second-hand from annual asbestos inspections

Thanks.

I did a bit of googling and there’s a website with galleries of pictures, showing asbestos in it’s various forms.

DO NOT under any circumstances presume to be able to reliably identify asbestos or not-asbestos by a Google Images search.  There are places you can send samples to for testing, use Google to find those instead.

Is it feasible to suit and mask up and DIY? Using proper a HEPA mask not some COVID paper one?

Definitely not imo. For a variety of reasons including the fact that you will be releasing asbestos fibres into the atmosphere and you will have to dispose of any asbestos removed in a proper and legal manner.

IME having samples collected and tested for asbestos is not as expensive as you might imagine.

If in doubt don’t touch before testing

Not sure you can just put asbestos in the post?

I’m pretty certain that these will contain asbestos. The question seems to be do they the paper backing? Which will be quite apparent.

My decision is to what way to approach the removal.

DIY is not out of the question. The local council even has guidance on their website. https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/NorthumberlandCountyCouncil/media/Bins-Recycling-and-Waste/Hazardous-waste-guidance-sheet.pdf

I have worked in many hazardous environments in my time, wearing far more PPE than what is required for asbestos.Seems pretty stright forward to me.

Definitely not imo. For a variety of reasons including the fact that you will be releasing asbestos fibres into the atmosphere and you will have to dispose of any asbestos removed in a proper and legal manner.

That’s just not true.

Room would be sealed.

There are plenty of legal and straight forward disposal routes. My local council will collect 7 bags for £31.50

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/Waste/Household-waste-recovery-centres/Hazardous-Household-Waste.aspx#:~:text=If%20you%20have%20any%20asbestos,to%20contact%20a%20licensed%20contractor.

These tiles are low level stuff not a load of blue asbestos fibre.

How wet is the floor? Is the dampness confined to a smallish spot? Does it have any pipework under,  ch perhaps.   You may have a pin hole leak.  Solve that and you’ll not need to seal the floor.

No pipework under the floor.

As in theOP, it’s a very old building and the floor is solid.

I’d get it all tested. My biggest regret in our current house was lifting the vinyl tile in the kitchen before I knew they could be ACM ( They had ceramic tiles on the top).

That’s just not true.

Room would be sealed.

Do you know how the room is sealed, negative pressure established, and the air is pumped out and filtered by specialised equipment which I suspect you haven’t got?

But fair enough if you think you fancy the hassle, go ahead and do it. Although you asked the question and having seen it done on numerous occasions I certainly wouldn’t fancy dealing with asbestos myself. There is a very good reason why asbestos removal is so expensive.

And personally I don’t attach much importance to the quantity of asbestos involved, every asbestos fibre is potentially very dangerous and once it is lodged into your lungs it will stay there forever. Obviously the more you breathe in the greater the risk but why take any risk at all?

Btw I speak as someone who has worked with asbestos and has cut the stuff with power tools causing so much dust that it resulted in sore throats. Which is one of the reasons why the NHS scans my lungs every two years, although thankfully I only worked with it for short periods at a time and no issues are currently obvious. I have also been on in-depth asbestos awareness courses where the effects of asbestos on your lungs was delt with in great detail. So it was always going to be a no from me.

Fair enough.

Personally, I see the tiles as pretty low risk, I won’t be drilling and cutting them.

I doubt a contractor would be creating a negative pressure environment to remove these either.

I can’t comment on your tiles but I do know that tiles with asbestos can become quite crumbly with age. I worked on the refurbishment of a hall which was full of them not long ago although I wasn’t there when they eventually removed them so I don’t know how it was done.

And yes the quantity of asbestos in the tiles is likely to be quite small but the risks of developing asbestosis is not totally related to the level of exposure. People who have been exposed to it on just one occasion can develop asbestosis 20 years later. And wives have developed it just from putting the work clothes of their husbands into the washing machine.

Yes an asbestos removal company might decide that the tiles can be safely removed without creating negative pressure etc, I don’t know, the stuff I have seen removed has been on walls and ceilings, but I would let them decide that and if it is that easy and simple to do then that will be reflected in the cost anyway.

Why bother distributing them? Just put a membrane over the top to stop the damp and work off that unless you’re going to dig out the floor to insulate and reconcrete

No need to lift them put a suitable smoothing compound over the top

https://f-ball.com/en/ball-rewards/f-talk-magazine/october-2022/product-focus-stopgap-1500/

So the front room/2nd living room isn’t a space we use that much and it’s seemed to have a slight damp issue, which has gradually got worse.

I suspect that the latter is because of the former.

Most rooms will degrade if closed up and left invented/heated/used.

What makes you think that there’s asbestos there?

Disregarding the tiles for now you have two choices that I see…. Dig down, add insulation and new concrete base or run an asphalt floor over the whole lot which should seal out the damp bit won’t help with insulation.

Having watched a ‘professional’ asbestos removal company working I think you could DIY it to a greater safety standard than the clowns I watched.

Grey corregated roof panels from the 50s or 60s .
Lead guy all suited up , paper hooded suit , boot covers , gloves facial respirator with 2 cartridges.
Uses his pry bar to remove panels and passes them to his oppo , fully equipped with a hoody and trainers. Who launched it into the open topped skip.

We had the same drove a bit to a test place in Witney, paid £20 it came back negative.
They came up easily enough so unless you are breaking them into tiny bits, drilling or sanding them, I can’t see much danger even if they have asbestos in, wear a decent mask and a disposable suit I guess.

Make sure the room is heated so walls and floor are above dew point and ventilate the room. You say the room isn’t used much. I assume under heated and ventilated. There may also be other issues with inappropriate materials for the age of the building. Sealing a floor in a 200 year old building is not the answer.

Btw I speak as someone who has worked with asbestos and has cut the stuff with power tools causing so much dust that it resulted in sore throats.

We had it on the large bore hot water pipes at school and used to sit next to them and pick off the asbestos.

When you see photos of the old factories that produced asbestos insulation, there was no extraction and looking closely you can see huge piles off it gathered on all flat surfaces, even on top of the light shades. It would be in the workers hair and clothes and they would carry it home, where the wifie would no doubt give it a shake outside, or over the line and beat it with a stick.

People that worked in that industry must have had their homes full of the stuff.

Make sure the room is heated so walls and floor are above dew point and ventilate the room.

It’s not dripping with damp.

There is an issue with damp from the floor, it’s slight but definitely there.

Paper backing is almost always only found below vinyl floor lay, not tiles, and is usually notifiable non licensed work.

Vinyl floor tiles (asbestos ones) quite often come with bitumen adhesive below which also contains asbestos (black and sticky type adhesive).
Removal of the tiles and adhesive is non licensed work. Tile removal is pretty easy to do DIY but removal of the bitumen is by using a grinding machine and creates a lot of dust. Most people just remove tiles and latex or screed the floor on top of the old bitumen.

In your house you can legally DIY any asbestos removal you want as long as you dispose of it correctly. Removal of vinyl tiles is very low risk if you follow guidance by the HSE. Disposable cat 5 suit, P3 filter mask, double bag waste. Launch waste into local farmers field etc…

Getting a professional company in to remove tiles will be reasonably expensive for the work they will do, depends on size and geographical location. If you let me know where, I can possibly recommend some companies.

Tiles are not a friabale material and don’t release fibres when damaged in the way in which more higher risk asbestos products do. Hence why they are low risk and non licensed.
‘Licensed’ means that for that asbestos product to be removed only a company who have an asbestos removal license issued by the HSE can remove it. It’s for higher risk products and typically they are removed under full polythene enclosure under negative pressure.

Having watched a ‘professional’ asbestos removal company working I think you could DIY it to a greater safety standard than the clowns I watched.

I don’t see how that is relevant. No one has suggested that the OP uses a dodgy company like the “clowns” that you observed.

Obviously everyone who handles asbestos should be wearing PPE and any removed asbestos should be properly bagged up, unlike the incident which you witnessed. You should have taken photos and the registration of the vehicle and reported it.

Edit : Listen to peter1979 who obviously knows what he’s talking about!

Sealing a floor in a 200 year old building is not the answer.

Why?

Listen to peter1979 who obviously knows what he’s talking about!

Agreed. You on the other hand appear to have gone full nuclear solution for a non nuclear issue.

We had the tiles in my place. They largely stay whole if you use a razor scraper to lift. Double bag  seal and put in the asbestos skip at the dump.

The adhesive got latex self leveled over. Didn’t bother trying to lift that that seemed the risky bit

Edit : Listen to peter1979 who obviously knows what he’s talking about!

Which is basically the opposite of your advice!

Going back to the title of my OP, what sort of cost would it be for a contractor to remove?

It’s a pretty big space, about 24m2.

@peter1979 – I know it could be vary massively but what sort of cost am I looking at? I’m in North Northumberland, most asbestos contractors are a fair distance away – 30 – 60 miles.

My guess would it will be at least £50 per m2?

Could a waterproof screed be laid over the tiles to avoid removing them at all?

Regarding the damp proofing, I was thinking of using a liquid epoxy membrane, something like this https://www.resinfloorcoatingsuk.com/shop/rfc-epoxy-damp-proof-membrane/

Which I guess has to soak into the concrete, so the tiles will need to go using this.

You can lay a screed over the tiles but I would only do this if the floor was in good condition already and the tiles are not showing signs of lifting. What might happen is you lay a screed and the tiles below start to degrade and damage the screed over time. You are better removing the tiles then screening over the bitumen.
Ok, north Northumberland is a little bit of out my circle of contacts.
A 42m2 area of tiles could be removed fairly easily in a day by a contractor, a seal of PVA applied over the top of the bitumen adhesive. So you’d be looking at a day rate for removal, usually 2 operatives, plus disposal costs. Probably up to a £1k, but this is a guess as I’m in the analytical and surveying side of the industry.

I would recommend getting the tiles tested first, as non asbestos vinyl tiles can look similar. Essentially non asbestos tiles are usually bendy whereas the asbestos ones snap. If it has the black bitumen adhesive below it’s almost always asbestos tiles. You can sample them yourself and scrape off a small amount of the adhesive and place it in a double sealed jiffy bag and post to a lab near you. Probably £30 or so.

Ove you’ve got an answer then just call 2 or 3 nearest asbestos removal contractors and get a quote.

Thanks for that.

Just had a bit of a closer look, tried to get a scraper under the tiles at their seam.

The material is very hard, but doesn’t seem to be ceramic. Not a vinyl either?

I speak to some specialists tomorrow and see how much I need for testing.

Whatever they are, they won’t be easy to shift.

If you can see a square outline to them then they are vinyl or thermoplastic floor tiles. I use a hammer and chisel in the corner of one and give them a good whack to get the full depth sample and you should be able to pick out a bit right down to the adhesive. Cover it with a wet wipe, chisel over the top, a couple of good whacks and try and peel up a corner.

@peter1979 – Thanks for all the advice. much appreciated.

You should have taken photos and the registration of the vehicle and reported it.

How do you know I didn’t?

I really hate mind readers , they always seem to know just what your thinking….

The point I was trying unsuccessfully to make was simply just because you are paying someone to do a job does not guarantee it will be done to a higher standard than a competent person could achieve if they did it themselves.
In today’s world where you can learn things online in an evening it’s not like 40 years ago where we relied on time served professional people to do a good job , as they have served an apprenticeship , possibly passed relevant qualifications and made a career out of a trade.

in my do-er upper house after determining not asbestos, I took a load of them types up with a shovel. Once under the first, it’s just noisy

How do you know I didn’t?

I really hate mind readers , they always seem to know just what your thinking….

I obviously wasn’t attempting to read your mind, I assumed that you didn’t take photos and report it because you didn’t mention that you had, if my assumption was incorrect then I am very glad to hear it.

Yes it is important to point that just because you pay someone it is isn’t a guarantee that they will do a proper job. So yeah, good point.