Vinyl asbestos tile is one of the most common asbestos materials still in British houses, usually a nine inch or twelve inch tile laid on a black bitumen adhesive. Both the tile and the adhesive can contain asbestos, and the adhesive is the part people forget, because it stays stuck to the floor after the tiles come up. Neither can be identified by eye with any confidence, which is why a sample settles it and a photograph does not.
How to identify asbestos floor tiles
Age and format are the clues rather than the answer. Nine inch square tiles are more often suspect than modern sizes, and a black tarry adhesive bed underneath is a common companion. Colour tells you nothing: the same tile was made in every shade. The only thing that identifies a tile is a laboratory analysis of a piece of it, and the same goes for the adhesive, which is sampled separately because it is a different material.
Removing them
Asbestos floor tiles and their bitumen adhesive are usually non-licensed work, and often notifiable non-licensed work depending on the material and how it is being removed. That does not make it a job to improvise: tiles are lifted whole rather than broken, the adhesive is dealt with as its own material, and the waste is double wrapped and consigned as hazardous waste. Grinding or sanding either of them is what turns a controlled job into a contaminated room.
What it costs
Price follows floor area, access, whether the adhesive is coming up too, and how much making good the floor needs afterwards. A small kitchen floor with the tiles lifting already is a different job from a whole ground floor bonded hard to a screed. Ask each quote whether the adhesive removal and the waste consignment are inside the figure.
Leaving them where they are
Floor tiles in good condition under a covering are frequently managed rather than removed, and covering them with a floating floor is a recognised option. That decision belongs in the risk assessment and the register rather than in a builder's head, because the next person to lift the floor needs to know what is under it.
Questions people ask about asbestos floor tiles
What do asbestos floor tiles look like?
Like any old vinyl or thermoplastic tile. Format and age raise the question, colour and pattern answer nothing, and only analysis settles it.
Does bitumen contain asbestos?
Bitumen adhesives and some bitumen products were made with asbestos, and the black adhesive under old tiles is a common example. It is sampled as a separate material from the tile above it.
Can I lay a new floor over them?
Often yes, and it is a legitimate way of managing them, provided the decision is recorded so the next person to lift the floor knows. It stops being an option once the tiles are broken or lifting.