I know there used to be a clunky way to search the boards, but I can’t remember / find it.
We made an offer on a house that has crumbling asbestos tiles on the basement floor. They are glued to the concrete floor. If we buy the house we would take care of this before moving in. Does anyone have experience with asbestos tile removal and disposal? I know that hazmat suits, a barrier, and environmental disposal are minimum requirements. Hopefully I can find a local company to give an estimate before we make a final purchase decision.
Any stories, advice, or ballpark estimates would be helpful.
We put those black with white streaks asbestos tiles in our home back in 1960s. One of the problems we found was that when they get cold they also get brittle. That was on the MS Gulf Coast so I’m not talking extreme cold - I just mean “cold”.
We took up a bunch of them after hurricane Camille and just threw them away as at that time there wasn’t as much knowledge about them as today and no special disposal rqmnts.
9" tiles were a big problem from those early days…
we had to deal with asbestos wrapped heating ducts, get them all out before allowing the plumber in to fix the drain lines… Furnace guy had a company he reccomended, they came in, done in a day on this 1500 sf home… Pretty reasonable, Maybe $2k…
Then the plumber, not cheap, but trusted, then the furnace guy replaced, updated all the ducting, that was a tad more, the whole game pushed $10k as I recall… But the mess, no heat for a time, but finally the relief it was done, and done right by trusted contractors was worth a lot…
Our house inspection found some asbestos tape on a couple of the heating ducts. The inspector said “Not really a big deal. Just don’t move it, leave it alone, it’ll be fine.” So we have.
Since I don’t know much more about the condition of your tiles, other than remediation, I would suggest you think about just encapsulating them - under another layer of tiles. Bury them under linoleum, thinset and porcelain, or some other floor covering and call it a day. Encapsulation is an accepted method of dealing with asbestos.
I want to get it taken care of by someone else BEFORE we move in. And I didn’t think about potential future law suit – good point!
If the house is old enough to have asbestos tiles, then it probably has asbestos in many other areas. Homes of that age used it in insulation, pipe insulation, roofing, shingles, siding, even a popcorn ceiling may be done with asbestos. Prior to the 80’s it was a “wonder material” in building; you likely went to school with it, church with it, and your parents worked in offices with it.
90% of asbestos is handled with encapsulation, not removal, but either one works; removal is just more expensive. If not disturbed asbestos materials will last several human lifetimes, and you can bet that most real estate transactions of homes prior to 1980 have dealt with the issue. Simple disclosure is usually plenty, sometimes they even say “there may be asbestos in the building materials, we don’t know”. And of course sometimes they don’t say anything at all.
The chances of a future lawsuit are vanishingly small, the real issue is whether you want a house with asbestos tile in the basement. If you do get it removed, plan on days and days of ventilation with no humans around, the fibers float forever.
