Vinylasa Floor Tile Asbestos?

This article describes Vinylasa floor tiles, produced in Mexico, and answers a reader's question about asbestos.

Vinylasa Floor Tile Guide

Question: do Vinylasa Floor Tiles Contain Asbestos?

I have tile from Vinylasa. SS-T-312B Class IV, ASTM F 1066 Pictures attached.

I am wondering if you have any information on asbestos with this. I tried searching your website, but was unable to find anything - which could be a good thing.
- 2020/11/21 Anonymous by private email

[Click to enlarge any image]

This Q&A were posted originally

at DOES THIS FLOOR CONTAIN ASBESTOS?

Moderator reply: Some, not all, Vinylasa flooring does contain asbestos

I have not found a history of the American Tile Inc. company - the producer of Vinylasa flooring - that was reliable.

But there is a VInylasa flooring company and website based in Mexico as I cite here:

• Contact: Vinylasa, Website: Telephone: 55-5803-1300 Email: contacto@vinylasa.com https://usa.vinylasa.com.mx/
  
  The website does not offer a physical address or mailing address but from the Vinylasa MSDS or "Material information Sheet" (given below) we have
  
  Losetas Asfalticas, S.A. de C.v\V., Canela No. 238, Col. Granjas Mexico, Mexico D.F. 08400 Tel: 011 525 803 1324.
  

There is also an American Tile, a construction materials company, in Los Angeles, California but it doesn't look like a flooring manufacturer.

• American Olean Tile Company whose flooring did contain asbestos - with some similarly-named flooring products but not a name match.
• Bolick, a tile distributor, describes the American Tile Company who produces Vinylasa flooring as company as specializing in non-asbestos formulated floor tiles.
  Excerpt:
  
  Vinylasa ... specialize in non-asbestos formulated, through-pattern tiles ... - source: Bolick Distributors, Box 15906 Baton Rouge, LA 70895 2055 N. Airway Drive Baton Rouge, LA 70815 USA Tel: 225-927-8016 http://bolick-distributors.com/id80.html retrieved 2020/11/21

What's odd about that distributor is they get the name backwards, describing "American Tile by Vinylasa" rather than "Vinylasa floor tile by American Tile Co." Go figure.

• The fact that an un-dated but apparently contemporary instruction sheet for Vinylasa flooring warns against older floor tile mastics that contained asbestos suggests that the manufacturer knew of asbestos hazards and might suggest that their product did not contain asbestos.
  

See also these Vinylasa flooring documents. [It is disappointing that the company does not provide publication dates on any of these documents - Ed.]

• AMERICAN TILE INC VINYLASA SPECIFICATIONS SHEET [PDF]
• VINYLASA FLOOR TILE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS [PDF]
• VINYLASA FLOORING MATERIAL INFORMATION SHEET [PDF]

Meanwhile, we could make a more-thorough guess at the chances that your older Vinylasa floor tiles contained asbestos by answering a few simple questions found at

DOES THIS FLOOR CONTAIN ASBESTOS? - 5 easy questions to tell if your FLOOR probably contains asbestos - live link found at the end of this article.

On 2021-03-09 by Jerry - do Vinylasa Floor Tiles Contain Asbestos? - Some, yes. Some, no.

Regarding "Question: do Vinylasa Floor Tiles Contain Asbestos?" above.

The photo of the tile box leads us to the answer.

"Conforms to Federal Specification SS-T-312B (1), Type IV, Composition 1."

That means it's defined by Revision B and Interim Amendment 1 of specification SST-312.

So we refer to that specification here: https://law.resource.org/pub/us/cfr/ibr/003/fedspec/SS-T-312B.pdf

From Revision B dated 1974, page 1, paragraph 1.2: "Type IV - Vinyl-asbestos."

Uh-oh.

But that's not the end of the story.

Scroll down to page 1 of Interim Amendment 1 dated 1979 (PDF page 13). It says to delete the definition of Type IV on page 1 of the 1974 spec and substitute this:

"Type IV - Vinyl composition.

Composition 1 - Asbestos-free.

Composition 2 - With asbestos fibers."

The box says the tile is Type IV, Composition 1, so it's asbestos free. Yay!

Since Composition 1 was first defined in the 1979 version of the spec, the tile cannot be older than that.

On 2021-03-09 - by (mod) -

@Jerry,

Thank you for that reminder that careful and thorough reading are really important. I'll keep the comment and cited material with this pa

...

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