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Brown armstrong vinyl asbestos floor tile (C) Daniel Friedman Asbestos in U.K. Floor Tiles After 1985

Asbestos- Flooring ID Requests for the U.K.

  • POST a QUESTION or COMMENT about how to identify asbestos-containing flooring materials and what to do when asbestos-containing floor tiles or sheet flooring are found in a building.

Advice for U.K. Floor Tiles that might contain asbestos: floors installed after 1985,

This article series provides flooring identification requests & photographs & discussion of UK flooring tiles or cottage tiles that may contain asbestos as well as a photo example of non-asbestos flooring.

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

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Asphalt & Vinyl Floor tiles in the UK after 1985 & before 2000

In the U.K. buildings constructed or renovated before 2000 may have included asbestos-containing products such as drywall, plasterboard, pipe insulation, or vinyl or asphalt-based floor tile or sheet flooring.

According to the U.K.'s Health and Safety Executive, Large amounts of asbestos were used in new and refurbished buildings before 2000. Blue (crocidolite) and brown (amosite) asbestos were banned by law in 1985.

Manufacture and supply of all asbestos was banned by the end of 1999.

Existing asbestos articles can continue in use until they reach the end of their service life. (HSE 2017 cited below).

Note that even if asbestos-containing material such as asphalt or vinyl-asbestos flooring is present in your building, that does not necessarily mean that you must or even should remove it. The least-risky course for flooring in good condition is to leave it alone, in place, covering it over with new material.

Asbestos is safe and legal to remain in homes or public buildings as long as the asbestos materials are in good condition and the asbestos can not be released into the air.

Article Series Contents:

Shown here: asphalt and vinyl based floor tiles and sheet flooring in U.K. homes. For some of these flooring photos we can confirm that the material does or does not contain asbestos. Other flooring images are shown as possibly-containing asbestos pending lab test results or other information that we post here.

Vinyl floor tiles in a 1987 house built in Gloucester UK (C) InspectApedia.comAccording to the U.K.'s Health and Safety Executive, Large amounts of asbestos were used in new and refurbished buildings before 2000.

Blue (crocidolite) and brown (amosite) asbestos were banned by law in 1985.

Risk of asbestos in UK flooring from 1987

Reader Question: I found these tiles under my carpet when we took it up.

I started cleaning them and the top layer came off.

Do you think these are asbestos ? My house was built in 1987 in Gloucester UK.

If you do what would be your advice on what to do next.

I was about to have a new carpet and underlay put down first thing tomorrow ?

Is this enough protection bearing in mind that the carpet grippers I've found are nailed into the tiles. - 2017/12/06 anonymous by private email

Reply: crocidolite asbestos was banned in the UK in 1985, two years before your floor was installed

In general, a 1987 vinyl tile floor in the U.K. might but probably would not contain asbestos. That GUESS is based on

1. the fact that crocidolite asbestos was banned in the UK two years before your floor was installed (that is 1985).

2. the more-common form of asbestos used in flooring products was chrysotile [not crocidolite as we mis-typed previously], and some amosite.

3. For "new" vinyl floor tiles in the UK to have been sold in an asbestos-containing version they'd have to have been "new old stock" that someone kept around from having been manufactured before 1985, OR flooring imported from elsewhere.

The UK Asbestos (Prohibitions) (Amendment) regulations came into force on November 24, 1999 (The E.U. followed in 2004). Chrysotile (white asbestos) had been permitted in the UK. Amosite and crocidolite forms of asbestos were banned in in the U.K. in 1985.

You are correct that Chrysotile asbestos (white asbestos) is considered less dangerous than it's cousins Amosite asbestos (brown asbestos) and Crocidolite (blue asbestos) but it would be a mistake to treate white chrysotile asbestos in a cavalier mannner. White chrysotile asbestos is considered a major health hazard by the World Health Organization and is so named also by EU standards.

Summary of Dates of UK Bans on Asbestos

In the UK a voluntary ban on blue asbestos (crocidolite) went into effect in 1967.

In 1985 the UK banned the import and use of both blue asbestos (crocidolite) and brown asbestos (amosite).

In 1999 the use of all asbestos was banned in Britain. However white asbestos (chrysotile asbestos) continues to be used in some countries, leading to the possibility that imported products leaking past the asbestos ban might contain asbestos in that form.

Britain was indeed at one time the world’s largest importer of amosite or brown asbestos, leading to a common view that amosite asbestos is responsible for a particularly high rate of mesothelioma deaths in the U.K.

Install New Carpeting over Existing Sound UK Floor Tiles

If your vinyl tile flooring is securely bonded to the subfloor as it appears to be in your photograph there is no reason not to proceed quite simply:

  1. Wash the present floor and let that dry.
  2. Install new carpeting over the floor.

Newer U.K. Floor Tiles that Do Not Contain Asbestos - 1987-1988

Question: identify floor tiles that are lifting - do these contain asbestos?

9x9 dark brown floor tile in the U.K. - does not contain asbestos, ca 1987 (C) InspectApedia.com NA

I'm really hoping you can help me identify some floor tiles that I have been lifting up over the weekend - asbestos exposure didn't even occur to me until after I had done this and i am now panicking about it.

The tiles broke up quite easily and were very brittle.

My property was built in 1987/88, the size of the tiles is 300x300mm.

This to me suggests that it is unlikely that they do contain asbestos but a quick search on the internet and i have found very similar looking tiles stating that these may contain asbestos (albeit they appear to be the older 9"x9" size).

I have attached an image of the tiles - any help would be much appreciated! - Anonymous [by private email] 2015/11/24

[Editor's note: The dark brown 9"'x9" floor tile shown above is installed in a U.K. home constructed in 1987-1988. ]

[Click to enlarge any image]

Reply: No, according to lab tests performed

Brown armstrong vinyl asbestos floor tile (C) Daniel Friedman

Above in the large photo is an Armstrong floor tile example whose dark brown tiles resemble your example.

I think the floor above is probably Cayuga Brown #715 by Armstrong.

The small photo below is an Armstrong Excelon tile product from the 1960's. Older than your flooring.

These are U.S. products described at ASBESTOS FLOOR TILE ID REQUESTS 1950's or EARLIER some of which were also distributed in the UK.

Keep in mind that variations in how a floor photograph is made can affect the apparent colour and pattern and thus can make finding your floor tile among our examples a bit tricky.

Vinyl asbestos floor tile identification photo U.S. Library of Congress

Above I also show a small image of Kasha Taupe sold in the U.S. from 1960 up to about 1969.

More about variations in apparent floor tile colour is

at ASBESTOS-CONTAINING FLOOR TILES by COLOR

I am surprised by the age of building that you report as I think you may find a close match at - ARMSTRONG EXCELON VINYL ASBESTOS FLOOR TILES - among the "standard" vinyl asbestos floor tiles - the reddish brown floor in your photo was a popular pattern sold over many years beginning in the mid 1950's.

Is it possible that your building is older than thought or that older stock flooring was installed? [Otherwise it is unlikely that floor tiles installed in 1987 or later contain asbestos.]

Also you can look in the ID-library of asbestos flooring beginning at ASBESTOS FLOOR TILE IDENTIFICATION​ organized by year and manufacturer where there are similar ones.

There are so many manufactures and floor tile patterns, types, sizes, and colors over many decades that just looking through catalogs organized by even color or pattern can daunting task.

One can narrow the question by a reasonable guess about the age of the flooring. At the very least, narrow this by the age of the building. We can narrow the guess further if we know when a building was renovated, or by observing the type of tile adhesive or mastic used.

WIth that data we can choose among our floor tile or sheet flooring photo ID guides that are organized by year beginning at the link I gave above.

PHOTOS: You are welcome to send us photos of flooring, and where loose tiles, markings, or packaging are available I'd want to see the back side of flooring and all sides of packaging and labels. Tile dimensions and thickness are also useful. Our email link is at the CONTACT link at the top or bottom of any InspectApedia.com page.

Reader follow-up: test showed this U.K. floor tile does not contain asbestos:

Many thanks for your response - I have since has these tiles tested at a lab and they have come back as negative for any trace of asbestos. I also managed to contact a friend who used to live in the same street who also had these tiles replaced and they too confirmed they were asbestos free - i'm relieved to have discovered this!

Watch out: other examples of this floor tile pattern widely installed in North America up to the early 1980's have been confirmed as an asbestos-containing material - Ed.

Which forms of asbestos are most-common in U.K. Asphalt or Vinyl Asbestos Floor Tiles?

Question: Is it crocidolite? No it's Chrysotile asbestos in UK floor tiles

On the page ASBESTOS FLOORING IDENTIFICATION 1950's or LATER in the U.K some way down, under the heading "Vinyl Floor tiles in the UK after 1985", it states that "2. the more-common form of asbestos used in flooring products was crocidolite, and some amosite."

This contradicts any info I can find on the UK HSE, such as ASBESTOS PRODUCTS in the UK, LIST [PDF] and also ASBESTOS: The SURVEY GUIDE [PDF] which only ever mentions chrysotile (white asbestos) in flooring products. Could crocidolite possibly be a typo here?

Or if not, then where does this information come from, please? - Anonymous by private emailil 2018/02/07Thanks

Reply: it's Chrysotile asbestos in UK floor tiles

I very much appreciate your careful reading and questioning of our reference to crocidolite asbestos in asphalt or vinyl tile flooring.

You are right that I appear to have mis-typed chrysotile as crocidolite - and below report on varous sources making clear the typical composition of and types of asbestos used in floor tiles, both asphalt-based and vinyl-based.

You are absolutely right that most asphalt-asbestos floor tile and vinyl-asbestos floor tile contained principally chrysotile asbestos with some amosite asbestos.

My citations below of Rosato who was there at the time are useful for percentage figures: at least 25% asbestos, of which both long fibres for strength and shorts for filler were used in asbestos-containing flooring.

Part of the confusion in our original probably stemmed from this remark:

Chrysotile had been the only type of asbestos permitted in the UK since amosite and crocidolite were banned in 1985.

But crocidolite was used in particularly in cement-asbestos products, in ceiling tiles, in fire-resistant spray-on coatings (cited below) and other products.

Floor tiles and sheet flooring that used asbestos are not asbestos-cement products and more commonly that flooring contained chrysotile and amosite asbestos.

At ASBESTOS CEMENT PRODUCTS we note that for cement asbestos:

HSE considers that the risk of exposure to airborne asbestos fibres is lower in asbestos cement products compared with some other asbestos containing products due to: ... - the high use of chrysotile asbestos compared to amosite and crocidolite asbestos.

I read that to mean that crocidolite was indeed in UK products prior to 1985. It was in the early 1980's that world attention began to focus more acutely on asbestos hazards in flooring.

In my OPINION those hazards are much less than the asbstos hazards from more-friable asbestos-containing materials, until there is a messy demolition or until someone grinds, saws, chops, or sands asbestos-containing floor tiles including both older asphalt-asbestos flooring and vinyl asbestos flooring that was popularized later.

 

Advice for Handling U.K. Flooring that May Contain Asbestos

Asbestos Advice & Recommended Reading from the U.K. HSE

Asbestos-Suspect Flooring Advice at InspectApedia.com

ADVICE: if we know nothing else about asbestos-suspect flooring then the following is a sensible approach:

For buildings with floor tiles or sheet flooring that can be assumed to have been installed in the U.K. before 1986 it would be prudent to treat the flooring as "PACM" or "Presumed Asbestos Containing Material".

That does not mean we should panic nor undertake an expensive and dangerous asbestos removal project.

Asbestos is safe and legal to remain in homes or public buildings as long as the asbestos materials are in good condition and the asbestos can not be released into the air.

Generally the safest approach is to leave such flooring alone and to cover it over with a coating or with another layer of flooring.

ASBESTOS FLOORING HAZARD REDUCTION - recommends various approaches that minimise the risk of asbestos hazards in U.K. buildings

Or for a floor that is in poor condition or that must be removed for other reasons such as renovations,

see ASBESTOS FLOORING REMOVAL GUIDE

IF you are faced with a requirement for demolition and if you are uncertain about the flooring's asbestos content and cannot identify it through our guides, then you have a sample tested.

See ASBESTOS TESTING LAB LIST

Watch out: do not assume that asphalt-asbestos flooring or vinyl-asbestos flooring in your building is the only asbestos hazard nor that it is the most dangerous asbestos source.

Other asbestos-containing materials in your building may be more friable, more-easily releasing asbestos fibres into the building air, and thus more dangerous.

The location and condition of the material is important too.

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Reader Comments, Questions & Answers About The Article Above

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1981 Sprite Swift Caravan made in the UK - discussed at InspectApedia.comDoes flooring or fridge in a 1981 Sprite Swift caravan contain asbestos?

Hi we purchased a 1981 Sprite Swift caravan and I was wondering if the fridge and vinyl flooring may contain asbestos? - On 2019-11-05 by Belinda

Reply by (mod) - possible asbestos in caravan flooring

Belinda, I don't know for a fact if asbestos-containing vinyl flooring was used in 1980's Sprite Swift Caravans, but as these are a U.K. product you'll want to take a look at

ASBESTOS FLOOR TILE IDENTIFICATION 1950's or LATER in the U.K.

You'll see that crocidolite asbestos was not banned in the U.K. until 1985, four years after your caravan was made.

I'd like to see a photo of the flooring in your caravan and in a second posted comment, an image of the caravan.

An example of a 1981 Sprite Swift caravan showing a glimpse of its flooring is shown below, adapted (unfortunately) from a junkmail website.


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