Removing both asbestos vinyl tiles or both tiles and adhesive

battenburg88

During some current renovation work (have been using this forum a lot - thanks!) we've found asbestos adhesive and vinyl tiles under ceramic tiles in the utility room. Its a small area - about 6m2 at most. The ceramic tiles are a little bit loose in places and some have cracked, so it isn't a solution to just go over everything with another layer of floor and the vinyl tiles at least will have to go.

I chatted to a couple of company's last week to get a ballpark figure on cost. They generally gave 2 options - remove just the vinyl and ceramic tiles and leave the adhesive in place but seal it over, or remove everything. I got the impression that the remove everything option would be quite a bit more expensive because they have to basically grind the adhesive off the concrete whereas the vinyl tiles should just chip off. 

The first quote has come back this morning. Removing the tiles only is just under £500 but removing the adhesive as well only goes up to just under £600. I thought that the difference in price would be much more, but with this level of difference I could probably do either option.

Trying to think what would be best. Part of me would like as much gone as possible (I get very nervous about stuff like this) but having to grind off the adhesive seems like much more dust creation and therefore risk. I think the guidance is to leave stuff undisturbed unless necessary, and I can't see many instances where I would want to break this concrete. Its not a very well built room, but the chance of actually redoing the floor completely any time soon is slim.

The slight oddity here is that there is also an asbestos pipe embedded in the concrete and carrying the water from the sink and washing machine outside. In an ideal world I would abandon this and re-route the drainage via plastic pipes, but that isn't straightforward due to the layout of the room so leaving in place for now. That means that, even if the adhesive is removed, I couldn't declare that there is no asbestos if I were ever to sell the house as the pipe would remain. If there was some kind of leak in the pipe, then I don't think I would ask somebody to carefully break the concrete around it to access the leak - at that point I think I would be forced to re-route so no breaking of the adhesive/bitumen necessary. 

Has anyone has adhesive removed as well as tiles? Thoughts in general? Thanks!

Whilst I know that vinyl tile removal could be a DIY job with precautions, I think I would prefer to leave it to the professionals so that won't be a route I go down even is it would save the most money. 

danrv

battenburg88 said:

Whilst I know that vinyl tile removal could be a DIY job with precautions, I think I would prefer to leave it to the professionals so that won't be a route I go down even is it would save the most money. 

Mask, gloves, water spray bottle, scraper and patience is all that's needed. Bag them up and take them to an appropriate recycling centre.
If they're stuck down well and the ceramic ones lift ok, they can be sealed with SBR and then self levelled. 
Easier route would be to leave it to the company to do what's best.

Albermarle

Why do you think the adhesive layer has asbestos in it ?
If it was anywhere I would expect it to be incorporated in the tile ( if they were very old and hard/brittle).
Have you had any of it tested for asbestos?

battenburg88

Albermarle said:

Why do you think the adhesive layer has asbestos in it ?
If it was anywhere I would expect it to be incorporated in the tile ( if they were very old and hard/brittle).
Have you had any of it tested for asbestos?

I had a refurbishment survey before the work started. 

There was a loose ceramic tile where I understand only adhesive was visible underneath, so that adhesive was tested and was negative. When a couple of fitted units were taken out after the work started it revealed an area of floor where the ceramic tiles hadn't been laid and there were the vinyl tiles. So, got a surveyor back out for that. The test result is lumped together as 'Floor Tile + Adhesive' so I suppose it is possible that its the tile which has the asbestos and not the adhesive. But the difference in price in this first quote I've got back would almost offset the cost of getting another test to check the two items separately.

My understanding though is thats it isn't uncommon for asbestos to be in the bitumen that stuck the vinyl tiles down as well, or so I've read. 

Slightly frustrating that they didn't look under the cabinets as part of a refurbishment when I told them the cabinets were being removed, but such is life.

plumb1_2

I’ve never heard of asbestos being in adhesive, there is other products with asbestos fibres in them.
Yes old vinyl tiles did have very small amounts of asbestos.Lumping the results together was unprofessional.
imo just remove the ceramic tiles, lift up any loose vinyl tiles ( double bag and tape up) then take to the tip.
The apply self levelling compound over the entire area. The asbestos is then encapsulated making it safe.

plumb1_2

battenburg88 said:

My understanding though is thats it isn't uncommon for asbestos to be in the bitumen that stuck the vinyl tiles down as well, or so I've read. 

Are you sure it’s bitumen adhesive and not laytex type adhesive?

Generally the adhesive bed would have been between 1 on 2 mm think so doubtful to have fibres in it.
Laytex adhesive can be black, white or yellow 

You will create a whole lot of dust trying to grind the adhesive off, spreading though out the house. So you will create a need to tent it off, create a dirty room and a clean room areas, special mask . Joe blogs £250, registered company £2k

battenburg88

Bit of of an update on this. I'm getting a professional company to remove the ceramic and vinyl tiles. They will leave the adhesive but seal it with pva and then (according to their documentation) Idenden ET10 or similar. The builder is happy with this and have said that they would then apply a latex levelling compound and the floor to go on top of that.

My only concern here is that I have a feeling the concrete floor may be slightly damp - a couple of the ceramic tiles had lifted slightly and the room is just generally poorly built. Though, the floor may be a little bit uneven as well, which could have been the cause of the lifting. 

If there is a little bit of dampness, just wondering whether a self-levelling compound will 'stick'? Its a utility room, so doesn't need to be perfect and the floor will be some kind of vinyl anyway.

bjorn_toby_wilde

It doesn’t have to be damp for them to lift in my experience. They’re likely not that well adhered if they’ve been down a long time. Ours have been down since the 60’s and I’ve found a few odd loose ones when we recarpeted.