Identifying Asbestos Floor Tiles

Asbestos tiles can be difficult to identify because you can t see the asbestos in the tile.

Identifying asbestos floor tiles.

Gather information about the age of the tiles. The risk for many people who live or work in buildings with old flooring is that it s hard to know if the building has asbestos floor tiles just by looking. If you know when the building was built or renovated this might help you estimate when the tiles were installed. Asbestos is actually a silicate based material that used to be commonly used in building construction for surfaces as common as walls or floor tiles.

Identifying asbestos floor tiles. Between the 1920s and 1960s asbestos was a popular material used in floor tiles. The definitive way to find out if tiles contain asbestos is to have them tested. 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.

Because asbestos was widely used before 1980 if you have flooring tiles that were installed before then you need to test a piece of the flooring to make sure it s safe. Vinyl or asphalt tiles that have these colors in it have a high likelihood of asbestos fibers. With that in mind here are the keys to identifying asbestos floor tiles.