Just ripping out my kitchen and taking some wall paper / plaster off the walls and there’s some old vinyl type covering stuck to the walls underneath parts of it. It suddenly occured to me it might possibly contain some kind of asbestos?
The Vinyl stuff is stuck on with like a black tar type stuff.
Its probably from the mid 1950s
Anyone know?

I won’t beat around the bush you’re f*cked !

Can I have your bikes and any money you have thanks

Or alternatively rather than ask a forum send a sample off to those in the know.

Bye

Thought you meant my old records were poisoning me!

It’s a possibility.

My house has vinyl (Marley or similar) tiled flooring pretty much throughout. I’ve had them tested – some contain asbestos, some don’t.

Anecdotally I’ve been told that tiles are very low in the amount of asbestos, though I tend to treat comments like that with some disdain unless spoken by a professional.

Will it massively delay your project to get a sample tested before you continue?

Better safe than sorry.

Certainly a possibility, yes. I’d get it tested by someone like Redhills, Lucion or whoever (there’s probably someone local to you).

Ive found a piece of it and its flexible (not brittle) and it easily set on fire..

To quote a “professional” I had to do some work, you could grind these tiles into snuff and use it and the amount of asbestos in it still wont hurt you. Take from that what you will….

Thought you meant my old records were poisoning me!

As a one-off it’s not a big deal. Only an issue for the poor buggers who were working laying the stuff day-in-day-out BITD.

As a one-off it’s not a big deal. Only an issue for the poor buggers who were working laying the stuff day-in-day-out BITD.

Actually, it’s random, one exposure might be fine, a thousand might be fine, or one might be the one that get’s you.

Friend of the OH recently got diagnosed with mesothelioma and is going through the process of going through his employment history working out where the exposure occurred. The only exposure they found was his work experience placement, not directly handling the stuff just a poorly managed building riddled with it, it hadn’t even occurred to him that it’d be there but apparently that site’s been linked to hundreds of cases.

Equally there are anecdotes of people living int he shadow of factories, in houses filed with asbestos dust, and being fine.

Actually, it’s random, one exposure might be fine, a thousand might be fine, or one might be the one that gets you.

My understanding too – the old “repeated exposure is the problem” line is a bit of an old wives tale.

It potentially only takes one fibre to cause a problem. Bear in mind that studies have shown a drawing pin removed from AIB* will release several thousand fibres, and I’d take no chances!

*Accepted to be way more problematic than vinyl tiles, hence having to have HSE notification before removing (ask me how I know).

I work for a local authority and find that asbestos content in floor tiles is quite common. Most of the reports I see deem it as low risk but we still remove them as a matter of course.
Call in a company to test them and once you get the results, you’ll know whether you can remove them yourself without risk or need an asbestos removal company to get involved.

Well, that’s basically the same thing isn’t it ? 🙂

If the random risk is 1/n per exposure and you have x exposures, your cumulative risk is somewhat proportional to x. Primarily you want to reduce x, ideally to zero. If you’ve done everything you can and x cannot be reduced to zero you then focus on improving the 1/n part of the equation with PPE, safe working practices, etc.

One day of the OP taking tiles out, with appropriate PPE = very negligible risk.

Weeks / months / years of working with the stuff (or sitting in a contaminated building) with no PPE = non-negligible risk.

Or leave the house for a few days while someone else does it. Your risk = 0 😀

Wasn’t that the Dunlop product called Semtex?

We are about to begin demolition of a former BT depot built in 1956, which is apparently full of asbestos. Now that’s going to be expensive.

You’d really need to have ground the tiles into a fine powder to have released the fibres and inhale it like Charlie for it to be a risk. I used to work in the respiratory protection industry and worked on the British Standards committees and advised contractors. The nasty stuff is blue asbestos commonly used in electrical and industrial cladding – most domestic use involved white asbestos which is pretty benign. The asbestos removal industry isn’t interested in making this information available, but they have to work to higher standards because of the risk of prolonged exposure to their workers.

Thanks all…
I massively reduced my personal risk by making the kids scrape it off the walls and pop it into some bags when they came back from school. There was very little dust so im sure they’ll be just fine.

I was just going to offer some professional advice but your last post indicates you already appear to have everything under control.

cloudnine – Member
Thanks all…
I massively reduced my personal risk by making the kids scrape it off the walls and pop it into some bags when they came back from school. There was very little dust so im sure they’ll be just fine.

Totally wrong.

Apparently it takes a few decades to cause a problem, so the obvious thing to do is to get your wife’s grand-dad to do the job.

If you can leave it then leave it. If you have to remove it then mask up and get rid carefully.

If you can leave it then leave it. If you have to remove it then mask up and get rid carefully.

^^^this X 1000. PVA it, cover it & move on^^^

Have run into two layers of this in replacing my mum & dad’s kitchen. The early 80’s lino is bulked out with white asbestos. Sadly some berk has put a layer of ply between the two layers so we have no choice but to remove if we want a flat floor.

Our line of attack is likely to be as follows:

Full disposable PPE and respirators
Spray the entire area with 50/50 PVA water mix.
Gaffa tape along any cut lines to encapuslate . Stanley knife through the gaffa tape. Remove, bag & label the 1st layer of lino.
More gaffa tape along more cut lines then more PVA spray. Chisel through the underlying ply sheets.
Remove & bag the ply sheeting then repeat the process for the second layer.
Take the whole lot (including the PPE) to the tip where there are now asbestos skips.
It’s a proper PITA.

In melbourne asbestos was carried to the docks in sacks, and then the sacks were reused as underlay.

it’s expensive to renovate an old property with carpet.