The only way to make it a science is to hire a licensed asbestos inspector or by sending a sample to a lab to be tested but doing so can be costly and time consuming.
Does my floor covering contain asbestos.
If the tiles or the floor beneath show oily discoloration the tiles very likely contain asbestos.
Some very old types of flooring that you may find in buildings that date back to the early 1900s have an attached rubber underlayment and this underlayment may contain asbestos.
Your home was built pre 1980.
It is safest to assume that any flooring material put down before 1980 contains asbestos.
As you can see this method is not an exact science.
Without a manufacturer s label you can t tell whether a product has asbestos in it just by looking at it.
Here s a photo of the wood planks we found under the linoleum and oilcloth any chance we are dealing with abestos on 2020 02 18 by mod damp wipe wash hepa vacuuming are fine.
And some six inch asphalt based or floor tiles tested by a reader were reported to be asbestos free even though their pattern matched other 9x9 asbestos containing floor tiles in the armstrong line.
On 2020 02 18 by lolly kerr.
Lolly that white backed sheet flooring could contain asbestos as does sometimes asphalt saturated felt underlayment.
Adding to modern confusion about which vinyl floor tiles from the 1950 s to 1980 s do or do not contain asbestos some lines such as the excelon supreme ca 1977 did not contain asbestos.