Likely or unlikely to contain asbestos

I am very conscientious about asbestos and have done testing in the past. However, Recently after my mother advising me that she was 100% certain my flooring had no asbestos in it I removed it by cutting it in strip and pulling it off. It looked like full sheet vinyl/linoleum (not tiles) and was hessian backed. The hessian back had been stuck down to the concrete floor so I scraped the bulk of it off with a chisel. There was no sign of any black adhesive or paper-like material underneath (which I believe are usually asbestos). Since then I have read more about asbestos in flooring and am very concerned that I have done the wrong thing. I can't change what I have done and cant get it tested but I would like to know the likelyhood that the floor would contain asbestos. I have been informed by one if the neighbours that the house was built in 1981. The property is ex-council and they did not have any record of the flooring having asbestos (don't know if they tested it though). Does anyone have experience of testing vinyls/linoleum that would give me an indication of asbestos presence from the description and age of my flooring?

John (Aberdeen)

 

Sounds like Linoleum youve got so i can say that your ok. No asbestos in that.

 

Lino is made up of natural materials.

 

I was thinking the same but wanted an experts opinion - thanks Dannyboy.

 

Now I'm reading that linoleum does contain asbestos because asbestos is also a natural material. What should I believe?

 

People often refer to vinyl as lino. So there is often confusion between the two ! There are two types of vinyl , those being homogeneous ( the same material all the way through) and heterogeneous (made up of different layers) Linoleum on the other hand is a totally different product although still homogeneous apart from the jute backing. I'm 99.99% sure that linoleum will not contain asbestos. Matt on here may be able to confirm . Matt.......are you there ?

 

I would put money on there not being asbestos in linoleum.

 

I can remember fitting what we used to call hairy back vinyl, we put it in alot of RAF houses

 

Sure you weren't fitting flotex upside down!?

 

Used to hate that stuff !!

 

now, what was that brown adhesive called, thick as poop and a real zangy smell to it

 

Gum spirit ??

 

if left for a while it would seperate and you had to mix it up

 

Thats the one !! Balls f52 isn't it ?

 

could be..

 

You can taste it along with your supper after working with it haha

 

In the metal drums ?

 

yep ...... thats the one. Suprised you can still buy it !!

 

Havent used that for years we used to do temporary classrooms in sussex and Berkshire using that stuff, used it to stick cork tiles then stick needlepunch on top of cork with it if it wasa double classroom used to sleep in the room aswell, mental what you used to do to say few quid on b+b

 

Yes, I can still taste it today after working with it yesterday. Thanks for all the input guys. That's put my mind at rest.