Many homeowners don't even know that they have asbestos tiles installed in their houses, simply because by just looking at the tiles, it is not always easy to determine whether or not they contain asbestos.

There are a number of different asbestos tiles and the ones that we most commonly see are:

  • Latex sheet flooring and backing on tile
  • Asphalt, rubber, and vinyl asbestos tile.
  • Asphaltic curtail cement
  • Vinyl and rubber felt backing on sheet flooring

Asbestos Floor Tiles are usually dark shaded


According to the Minnesota Department of Health, more than 3,000 distinct construction components have been identified and registered that may contain asbestos to some extent. Before the public learned about the dangers associated with asbestos exposure, asbestos fibers were used as fillers in the production of tiles and other items. In order to conclusively determine if your floor tiles consist of this potentially hazardous substance, a sample would have to be sent to a lab for further evaluation. However, there are a few indicators that may let you do a first determination if your flooring may contain asbestos.

Keep in mind that removing the floor tile may put you at an increased risk of inhaling the toxic asbestos fibers. Therefore, there are a number of safety measures that should be taken in order to decrease the risk of getting sick.
Usually, asbestos tiles are of darker color, like dark gray, dark brown or black. If the tiles are made of asphalt or vinyl and show a darker shade, that is usually a good indication that they contain asbestos. You should definitely find out how old the tiles are, respectively, what year they were installed. If it turns out that the flooring was installed any time between 1920 and 1970, chances are that it consists of asbestos to some degree. In his publication: "Asbestos: Its Industrial Uses", Daniel Rosato explains that in the year 1940, 5 percent of all installed floor tiling contained asbestos and by the year 1946, this number bumped up to 12 percent. In addition to that, asbestos found widespread use in older industrial vinyl floor tiles. This type of flooring generally came in nine-inch tiles and was also distinctively thicker than recent vinyl flooring. According to expert construction examiner Daniel Friedman, the older asphalt floor tiles, older vinyl tiles, as well as some older 12-inch vinyl tiles and sheet linoleum, probably hold asbestos to some degree.

As mentioned earlier, to be certain, you need to send a sample of your tiling to an asbestos testing lab. Ideally, you should hire an asbestos testing company to evaluate your premises on-site. Those experts have all the necessary safety gear and also have their affiliates labs to test product and air samples for asbestos presence.