Basement renos - asbestos tiles

6 years ago

I'm working on a complete basement renovation and I'm a bit stuck on options when it comes to dealing with the asbestos tiles that were under carpeting. A lot of them are loose or broken and any time I touch a tack strip, they break. I have hired an asbestos company to remove other ACMs and have asked them to remove the tiles as well. The main reason I asked them to remove the tiling is due to a foundation crack where we believe there might be mould under the wood substrate. There's mould under the carpet and tack strip over the tiles; so it's a fair assumption. But the wood substrate is only located in the family room and not the hallway, bathroom and bedrooms. I'm debating on just leaving the asbestos tiles where there is no wood substrate and that were directly glued to the concrete and only tell the abatement company to remove the loose/broken ones including the tiles under the tack strips. If only some tiles are removed including the perimeter wall ones, can I add self leveling concrete as to have a level floor for a new substrate? Can it be applied to both mastic and asbestos tiles?

If these tiles are coming up fairly easily, could there be concerns of them moving under any new substrate and flooring?

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Comments (3)

SJ McCarthy
6 years ago
What do you want to do for flooring?
Melanie Richer
Original Author
6 years ago
I was hoping to use laminate flooring with a waterproofing substrate. I would've liked to use dricore but I need something less thick due to height restrictions. I'm worried if I put a substrate, it'll be very uneven if I don't level the floor.
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SJ McCarthy
6 years ago
You can LEAVE the asbestos tile SO LONG AS (ahem...this is the CAVEAT so listen up) they are INTACT and WELL ADHERED to the concrete. Oh dear. Looks like they will have to come up.

A wonky slab/plywood substrate = wonky. Floating a new substrate over top isn't going to fix 'wonky'. It might HIDE the wonky...but it won't fix it.

So...what to do. What to do. You can have the ENTIRE thing removed (the expensive part is the SET-UP of the tenting....after that it is pretty routine stuff) by the abatement company and keep going with your renovation. OR you can ignore the WHOLE THING, put down a vapour barrier over the concrete part (6mil polysheeting) pop in 6mm cork underlayment over the WHOLE AREA (loose lay = super easy) and put down a laminate floor.

If you go for the SECOND option here is what you KNOWINGLY do to yourself: you void the warranty on your laminate. That's it. That's all. Nothing exciting. Just a 'voided warranty'.

This shouldn't be too difficult to bear. So long as you use the proper expansion gaps at the walls and use TRANSITION STRIPS through doorways, you should have a floor that gives you 15 years of service. Not bad for a floor with a voided warranty.

If you want to do the abatement then DO IT ALL! No half measures. Again, the EXPENSIVE PART is the SET UP. Once the area is set up, the cost per square foot GOES DOWN as you add more areas. It's an 'all or nothing' situation. Either you do it and get rid of all the asbestos tiles or you don't do any of it. It doesn't make sense to do a half-@ss job to save $200.

Traditionally I do NOT recommend voiding warranties...but there is a cost-to-risk benefit at play here. A laminate floor that bounces a little isn't the end of the world. In fact it happens everyday. So you might as well do it ON PURPOSE to save thousands of dollars of abatement costs.

Did you test the adhesive for the asbestos tiles?