Abestos floor tile prep for LVP install

That tile is VERY loose. I can assure you it will pop off the slab like nothing. SO.............you're legally allowed to remove asbestos flooring as a home owner. There's asbestos in the tile and the glue underneath. Here's my recommendation. Do a little online research into the local and state handling requirements. In most states you just need to use heavy duty CONSTRUCTION trash bags, double bag and seal the waste with duct tape.

Wet everything with a spray bottle-----mist-----as you work. Pop the tiles off with an ice scraper trying to get them up in full tiles. Usually, coming into the corners at the lowest angle "pops" the tile loose. Put on a pair of work gloves if your hands are smooth and soft like a baby's ass and you want to keep them that way. I'm so calloused by now that my callouses have callouses. So I laugh at work gloves.

Stack the tiles about 10 high and toss them in the bags. One square foot weighs about a pound and a half. So 50 square feet equal about 75 pounds. That will rip through even a double bagged system so take that into consideration.

Here's my point. It's SAFE and EASY to get those tiles out of there. If I'm wrong and they don't pop loose then my all means use the Henry's patch after STRIPPING any wax/finish off and then go ahead as planned with your underlayment and install.

If those tiles are seriously STUCK after 50-75 years you don't need a moisture test. That IS the moisture test. I'd lay 20-1 odds they're just laying there with gravity holding them from getting up and running out to the trash bin by themselves.

Yup.

 

I can't speak for his experience but I can speak from mine. They will fall off the floor with a wee bit of vertical lift. The adhesive they were installed with is likely old cut back, it just crystallizes after about 10000 years and has no hold left. As for the why of it all, it is just always better to get them off the ground. Anywhere they are lifting or loose will affect patching, not to mention movement after patching could cause things to get loose under your floating floor causing failure. Not to say asbestos isn't a bad thing but if you aren't sanding or pulverizing those tile your likely hood of exposure is greater crossing the street due to people's break pads than it I's from those tile.

 

I’d equate our meaning of loose as flipping a flap jack. Get a scraper under it and the tile wants to flip itself. Down like “Iron” I believe is Incognito’s opposite term.

 

Scraping old pad off with razor scrapers is about the only option. This however will create a greater risk of exposure. It was probably installed with either a latex based adhesive OR xylene based contact cement. Either of those are not going to be simple to remove with chemicals. The old finish if there ever was one on a residential tile isn't something I would try and address. Likely ammonia would be the best choice but it is vile and not worth it.

 

One of the reasons you have over 100 years of experience in the three previous pros telling you to remove the old tile is that there is no good way to remove those remnants without causing more problems for you to deal with such as Mark just stated. While it's not a great scenario to disturb asbestos it's the better of two evils for the longevity of your floor.

As Mark alluded to, there are multiple problems that can occur when you start just covering things up. For example, and I've seen this occur many times with this same scenario, when you patch over that tile with the floor patch in about 30-60 days as the product cures out completely it develops a tensile pull and will literally disbond the tile from the subfloor. That may not seem like much of a problem because you think that the product on top is going to hold everything in place - let us assure you it will not. As you live and traffic on that floor these loose tiles underneath can begin to move, resulting in cracking an popping sounds. In extreme circumstances, they could move enough to cause a problem with the new floor as well. Remember, that patch is wet when you're using it. Some of the moisture from that patch is going to get into the joints between those tiles and start to work on the underlying adhesive.

I see you're doing a mat test to try and detect the presence of vapor emission. That's good, BUT you're doing it incorrectly. That plastic has to be attached TO THE SLAB. You will not get a realistic measurement doing it the way you're doing it. There is enough air exchange occurring through the joints of that tile, underneath the tape that it will not give you the proper indication to proceed with further testing if there is a problem. In all honesty, it's not an accepted test in the industry any more to determine suitability to proceed with the installation. It's merely a trick of the trade that some of use and ONLY WHEN THE RISK OF FAILURE IS MINIMAL to determine if we need to do further testing.

The proper way to do a mat test is to expose the slab in a 20" x 20" area. Grind the area to remove the "carbon concrete" layer (typically about 1/32") and then set your testing material (6mil poly and duct tape). Watch that over the next 72 hours and see if any moisture develops.

With all that being said, one reason we, as pros and an industry, don't solely rely on this is that it's too easily effected by other factors. For example the sunlight coming through the window above your test site can provide enough heat that with the minute gaps between the joints of the tile it can literally keep any moisture vapor from showing up. It can also be drastically effected by ambient relative humidity in the area as well as the weather. Since we know this slab is prior to the 50's as you stated there is absolutely no way you have any type of intact vapor retarder underneath. My point in saying that is if you're not currently experiencing wet conditions in your of the country, then you're not really ruling out a problem if you begin to get into a wetter condition down the road.

You asked about how we know from looking at the picture whether the tile is loose. And I would agree with Mike's comment that the term is relative. Because after literally looking at thousands of jobs of the same product and knowing the conditions you can develop a "sense" of what that material is going to do. Much like a mechanic listens to your car and knows pretty quickly what's wrong. It comes from experience.

So all that being said, when you tell us you're going to disregard what we are telling you on a major issue such as remove or don't remove, it makes it very difficult for us to provide you good information and advice on the other issues. This would be like walking into an emergency room bleeding profusely from your head and asking us to disregard that and treat the hang nail on your toe. Just trying to provide perspective and not be rude. None of us here are paid to do this. We do it because we like to help people like you, but the last thing any of us wants to do is to take you down a path toward failure.

Hope this helps you understand what we're seeing from our perspective a little.

 

OK, probably not THOUSANDS of jobs where I've se loose asphalt-asbetos tiles like yours. HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS for sure though. But as I said, 20-1 is where I would put my money assuming they're barely adhered. There's always that one job where you expect it to pop loose and it's DOWN LIKE IRON.

We're frequently wanting to overlay asbestos flooring under the assumption that's it's fairly well bonded. Then upon closer examination we come to the conclusion that it's going to be a HORRIBLE idea to try that. In the commercial flooring industry no one, the business/customer, general contractor or any licensed contractor can so much as TOUCH asbestos materials and it can cost tens, hundred of thousands, even millions of dollars to get the asbestos out of the picture by hiring a specialized abatement contractor. Many floorcovering plans are canceled when they understand the costs and time constraints. (Shutting down an entire facility to prevent contaminating the HVAC system)

So I know what you WANT to do. And I know why it's a bad idea.

Tap around with a hammer. It'll take 2-3 seconds before even you can tell whether the tiles are secure or loose. I persoanlly would not be afraid to razor scrape the residual pad adhesive and strip off the finish. There are janitorial supply stores where anyone at the counter can recommend a decent product. That's a simple process (mop on, lightly scrub, mop up----RINSE thoroughly. THEN you can use that Henry patch and go to town. But if the tiles are loose, just pop them up for crying out loud. It's easy money and you are lucky they're not stuck down like iron.

 

adding my 30 years to that 100, flip those flapjacks and start fresh

 

I clicked Jim. Maybe that'll get you to $2.51.

 

Me, I would use an approved patch to skimcoat over top of cutback just to improve the possibility of it creating noise of the plastic. When moisture vapor from below gets stopped atop the plastic barrier it could soften and sticky the old cutback.

 

Uh, yes. I feel better already!

 

Yes, demo, skim coat, approved underlayment/barrier then flooring.

That's standard operating procedure for your deal. Whatever prep is needed will bond much better and perform better over existing adhesive as compared to overlaying existing floors. The only good reason to lay over asbestos flooring is when it's "down like iron".

 

You say that with Accent?