The danger from asbestos material is when it is friable, which means there are small pieces and fibers that become airborne and they are ingested into your lungs. Based on your description, you may have had chips of tile come off while trying to remove it. However, unless you were grinding or drilling you probably didn't have any that became airborne. I am definitely no expert, but it sounds like you had a very low risk of dangerous exposure..

If you ever look at the asbestos pipe wrap that was common many years ago you will much better understand the concept of friable asbestos and how you might breathe it. If you try to remove the wrap it will crack, break and crumble into very small pieces that could easily become airborne. This would be very unusual for tile.

Bruc

thank you Bruce for your response !!!!!!

Erika-

I spent many years in asbestos regulation and abatement issues. From what you have described, I don't think anything that was done resulted in an exposure that you would have to be concerned about. And the bits of tile you found afterward are not an issue: VAT doesn't sit there emitting particles like it's radioactive. The vinyl binder encapsulates the fibers, so they won't go anywhere unless you decide to do something destructive, like sand the floor. The clearance test results indicated that there wasn't an elevated concentration of asbestos fibers, and just because you found some pieces of non-hazardous tile sitting around does not mean that it somehow indicates the test results were invalid.

It's good you are aware of environmental risks and cautious about them, but I need to point out that environmental risk is one of those things where many people tend to think they are either fully safe, or that if they have a small exposure it may kill them. It's not black or white: in reality, we all have various, small exposures every day to all kinds of pollutants that we are generally not aware of. In fact, there is a very small, but measurable, amount of asbestos fibers floating around in the air all the time, even in rural areas...it's called the background level. While this might sound scary, it should be reassuring since obviously we don't have an epidemic of asbestos-related deaths among the general population. I think it's important to be aware of environmental risks, and I don't want to minimize the threat of exposure posed when asbestos is treated improperly and made friable, but your situation does not rise to a level that should cause concern for you or your family, nor do you need to worry about some residual contamination that was not present in the first place.

thank you for your time and thoughtful response i so appreciate it !

Erika-

You’re welcome. You had a valid concern, and I wanted to reassure you that it was all ok.

thank you !!