flooded rooms with old tiles under carpet

15 years ago

Hi - Long story short: tankless hot water heater failed & flooded bathroom & 2 adjacent bedrooms.

We removed the carpet & pad & have multiple fans blowing. There is an odor now in the empty rooms. Previous owners were heavy smokers & we got rid of the smell in the house during our initial reno with lots of cleaning, sealing, painting.

Older house (60's) and there are old tile squares under carpet. We realize they probably have asbestos which is no big deal to us, since they are covered. It's just that now, we smell some funk.

Initially we put down 6 mil plastic & then carpeted. Worked fine, except that if you moved furniture, the carpet would slip or the plastic would bunch a little & then you'd hear a slight "crunching" of the plastic when walking.

My question is, is there a better way to seal / vapor barrier this floor before going back with carpet? Should we KILZ it, go back with plastic (need better way to stick it down) or remove the tiles (some of which are now loose)? Would we have to scrape up the mastic or could we just KILZ over it?

Thanks for your help!

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Comments (4)

sunnyca_gw
14 years ago
My dad was a floor layer for years. When I was 5-6 my dad drew a line on a floor with chalk & told me to take a few asbestos tile & not cross the line or I would fall out the opening but toss the tiles into a truck parked down below. Our house had asbestos tiles in the basement, all 5 of us played on the floor all the time. About 10 yrs ago dad & I removed all the asbestos tiles from basement of church. None of us have had cancer. Dad is 95 & often pried up old tiles, if I did it again I would use a face mask & open windows. People used to have an asbestos mat right next to their stove to put hot items on, I saw people rub the pan across those things, all schools had asbestos tile floors when i was growing up, lot of them remain, park I go to every week has it on gym floor. It's been on since my kids went there for cub scout events 38 yrs ago. I wouldn't sand the stuff that remains, that probably would give you some in your lungs. Leaving it is going to cause lumps under carpet & especially if you move furniture around. Most of my house has asbestos tile under the carpet pad as my house is over 40 yrs old,required to have flooring on floors even tho you were going to carpet it or house couldn't be sold, all new tracts of houses were like that. So my dad put in bathrooms & kitchen before we moved in. So there are hundreds of thousands of houses with asbestos tile in them. It's kind of like lead paint, won't harm you unless you eat it or sand it like crazy, then you can ingest it. What kind of floor is it, wood or cement? You can paint the Kilz on & then put a carpet pad down & carpet over it. The pad helps keep heat in as the back of it is kind of like a plastic stuff & top is dense foam. Makes the carpet more comfortable & seem more plush also.It's well worth the money.
User
14 years ago
Asbestos isn't a problem until it's broken up and the fibers can be breathed in, that's how you get the health problems. I would second the recommendation to use Kilz on tile, then a pad and carpet. Do not use plastic, it will trap moisture and it will surely smell worse in time. Good luck.
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joed
14 years ago
Remove the loose tiles. They will only begin to shift around under the carpet. If you don't remove all of them, then use floor leveller to fill in holes left by the loose tiles.
brickeyee
14 years ago
"If you don't remove all of them, then use floor leveller to fill in holes left by the loose tiles."

Or the cheapest tiles you can find of similar thickness.

Very thin sections of leveler have a nasty habit of crumbling unless protected further (like by a layer of underlay at least 3/8 or more thick).