Tarred leaky skylight (C) Daniel Friedman Asbestos in Felt Paper Underlayments, Mastics, Sealants, Adhesives

  • POST a QUESTION or COMMENT about the asbestos content in cutback adhesives & roofing mastics and asbestos in roofing felt paper used as roofing or flooring or siding underlayment or building wrap.

Sources of asbestos found in adhesives, mastics, or sealants used in flooring or roofing:

This article lists common sources of asbestos that may be encountered when demolishing or renovating older floors, floor underlayment, or roofs and roofing underlayment.

This article series answers questions about floor tile, sheet flooring, or roofing cutback adhesives or mastics that may contain asbestos.

Does or did roofing mastic products & sealants contain asbestos? What are the hazards of demolishing or working on floors or roofs where asphalt-based asbestos-containing mastics, cutback adhesives, or sealants were used? Page top photo of black mastic floor tile adhesive provided courtesy of reader G.M.

InspectAPedia tolerates no conflicts of interest. We have no relationship with advertisers, products, or services discussed at this website.

Sources of Asbestos in Flooring Adhesives & Underlayment

Asbestos containing vinyl asbestos floor tilesList of Authoritative sources reporting the use of [or absence of] asbestos in any form of flooring underlayment, cutback adhesive, floor tile mastic, roofing mastic, roofing sealant or roof flashing cement

[Click to enlarge any image]

  • Asbestos in tile mastics & roofing mastics or adhesives: some tile mastics and adhesives including adhesives used for floor or wall tiles did contain asbestos as a filler or fiber strengthener.
  • Cement asbestos slates 

    were described in the Journal of Hazardous Materials as [safely] recyclable in production of stoneware tile mixtures in 2008 [27] and a procedure for producing [safe] lightweight ceramic materials by a process bonding chrysotile asbestos fibers was described by Mackenzie and Meinhold in 1994. [28]

    Other roofing products contain asbestos.

    See ASBESTOS CEMENT PRODUCTS for examples.
  • Ceramic tile asbestos sources:

    Unlike asphalt-asbestos floor tiles or sheet flooring and later vinyl-asbestos floor tiles or sheet flooring, traditional ceramic tile installations were bedded in cement, not mastic, and not an asbestos containing material.

    But from the 1960's some ceramic tile installations used a thin-set mortar or a thin-set mastic that might contain asbestos as was the case with the other floor coverings we just named.

    See CERAMIC TILE, ASBESTOS / LEAD?

Asphalt impregnated felt paper flooring underlayment may contain asbestos (C) InspectApedia.com FiveAces AQ

  • Asbestos in flooring underlayment: asphalt-impregnated felts or "paper" used as flooring underlyment like that seen between gaps of the diagonal subfloor in the photo above, provided courtesy of an InspectApedia reader.

    ACM flooring underlayment beneath ceramic tile, hardwood and some other flooring materials  [underlayment is not ceramic tile itself ] has been found under flooring in demolition projects, a practice that can extend to ceramic floor tiles [4]
  • Asbestos in roofing felt-underlayment: some older asphalt-impregnated felts contained asbestos - essentially the same product, 15# or 30# felt paper - as used under flooring.

    See details at ASPHALT ROOF SHINGLE ASBESTOS where we include a list of manufacturers of asbestos-containing felt underlayment products and where you will find research citations on the use of asbestos in asphalt-based roofing products such as shingles or felt paper underlayment.

15 Pound Felt house wrap (C) Daniel Friedman

  • Asbestos in siding underlayment or building house-wrap: present in the same asphalt-impregnated paper or felt described above as a flooring and roofing roduct, was often used as a h housewrap.

    See details at FELT 15# ROOFING, as HOUSEWRAP/VAPOR BARRIER
  • Asbetic flooring: using asbestos mine waste products (largely dust and very short asbestos fibers) is described by Rosato [23].

    The result was a "hard but not completely water tight" flooring material. Asbetic is a mixture of ground mother rock and the shortest, otherwise unusable asbestos fibers. [He does not name ceramic tile flooring in this category.]
  • Asbestos in tile mortar: Asbestos used as an ingredient in tile mortar is described in a patent dispute. [27]
  • SURVEY OF ACCREDITED LABORATORIES FOR ASBESTOS FIBER ANALYSIS [42] study of asbestos in ceramic floor or wall tiles as reported by asbestos test labs

Possible sources of confusion about asbestos content in ceramic floor tiles:

  • Asbestos in clay products: Asbestos has been reported in art clay (such as Fibro-Clay) [37] used in schools and in pottery clay where it occurred in the form of talc added as a flux to lower the firing temperature. Talc and clay from at least one U.S. mine contained anthophyllite asbestos.

    It was unclear whether or not this material fell under the aegis of asbestos regulation.[36] The asbestos content of talc depended on where it was mined, and some talcs were asbestos-free[40].

    Depending on the quarry source there may be deliberate or accidental inclusion of asbestos in terra cotta tiles such as roofing tiles.

    Other clay products that may have had asbestos added in the form of talc or vermiculite (some vermiculite contains asbestos) in addition to art clays, may include clays used as pipe joint seals or insulation, and in the production of firebricks used to line the combustion chambers of heating equipment such as boilers or furnaces, and other school art projects such as paper marches.[38][39]
  • Pre-historic origins of use of asbestos in clay pottery: The use asbestos-strengthened ceramic wares (pottery) dates from the Stone Age and continued throughout the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age.

    Specifically, asbestos fibers were used to strengthen earthenware pots and cooking utensils as long s 4,500 years ago, an application documented by various sources.[26] Also, a Wikipedia entry on Asbestos-ceramic describes pottery made with asbestos and clay [25].
  • Asbestos textiles were used as safety protective clothing & gear for workers in the ceramics industries - a possible source of confusion associating the terms "ceramic tile" and "asbestos" in some search engine results.

    Some mesothelioma information and legal resource websites name "ceramic tiles" as containing asbestos [22] without citing an authoritative source.
  • ASBESTOS CONTAINING PRODUCTS, LIST-OF- the InspectAPedia master list of asbestos forms and asbestos-containing products, enumerates asbestos-containing-materials (ACM) using historical information derived from Rosato and other industry sources.

    Rosato who provided an extensive discussion of asbestos used in flooring materials, referred exclusively to the use of asbestos in resilient flooring products (such as vinyl asbestos floor tiles) and excluded non-resilient flooring (stone, slate, ceramic tile).

    Rosato confirms use of asbestos and clay as mixture ingredients in premix-molding-compounds and the use of asbestos fibers mixed with ceramic fibers to form filter paper for the paper making industry (these are not ceramic tile products) [23]
  • Asbestos ceramic bricks: Leonelli et als. refer to the disposition of asbestos by microwave treatment of asbestos waste into ceramic bricks - another possible source of association of the words "ceramic" and "asbestos" in web searches that does not extend to ceramic tiles. National Center for Biotechnology Information, NIH, USA[24]

 




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Reader Comments, Questions & Answers About The Article Above

Below you will find questions and answers previously posted on this page at its page bottom reader comment box.

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Anonymous by private email: does this black paper felt contain asbestos?

Asphalt impregnated felt paper flooring underlayment may contain asbestos (C) InspectApedia.com FiveAces AQI was hoping to receive some insight about some material I noticed in our basement above
wooden slats.

We have an unfinished closet in our otherwise finished basement. The ceiling of the closet is wood from the floor above.

I noticed that there is a black paper- or felt-like material that’s visible between the wood slats. It appears to be sandwiched between the bottom subfloor and the hardwood floor above. I believe this is an underlay for the hardwood floor.

I’ve attached several pictures to give a sense of the ceiling and the material. It may be harder in some pictures to make out, but in others you can see areas where the black material stops and the other layer of wood is visible. The material appears to be very thin, only a millimeter or so thick I’d guess.

Our house was built in 1960. Is this felt/paper-like material an underlay. Could this contain asbestos?

The material appears to be in good condition. I don’t see any signs of degradation or crumbling/sheering. If there is a possibility that it contains asbestos, is there a concern of asbestos being released into the air from the material not being sealed off but otherwise not disturbed (other than foot traffic on the floor above).

We use this closet for storage and the door opens to a living area.

Moderator reply:

That looks like asphalt-impregnated felt paper used as a flooring underlayment.

Some old asphalt-imregnated felt paper contained asbestos. The product was widely used as roofing underlayment, flooring underlayment, and sometimes as a building or house wrap or vapor barrier (though we report it was not a great performer in that role). .

In the location shown in your photo, felt paper sandwiched between subflooring and finish flooring and visible only at gaps between subfloor boards, it is not at all likely to produce a detectable hazard in the building and it is best simply left alone in place.

It's not exposed and is not a friable material that would be sending particles into building air.

If the flooring and felt underlayment were being demolished there could be an airborne asbestos (and other particle) concern.

 


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