/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Looks like shit my grandma had in her house. I bet that floor killed when it was clean and taken care of.

Lets see, she re-did her kitchen in...84.. but the floor had been done 6 years earlier. So its probably 1977 or so era. Its that vinyl shit right?

>>476011

yeah its like one huge roll that was cut to fit the edges etc,
its pretty intact in this room except for a few dirt stains, did the glue underneath do permanent damage to the wood?

>>476014

You can take it up, sand and re-finish the wood. Don't worry about asbestos. Hell I've got asbestos in my garage but I don't worry about it. I will when I have lung cancer. But the chance that its under that floor is very, very slim.

>>476026

chiming in

Asbestos is also only dangerous if it is sanded, sawn, etc. So if you find some solid pieces of it which can be detached without cutting don't worry about handling it. It's virtually no danger.

>>476008
asbestos exposure is only dangerous when the fibers become airborne or "friable"
if the flooring has cracks or is crumbling, be extra cautious.
Chances are there's lots of frayed edges and loose asbestos fibers around and under the baseboards and the floor itself... The problem with asbestos is, once its inhaled, it can never be exhaled and your lungs cant deal.

I flip houses so I deal with it sometimes. I just spray it with water, wear a 3m cartridge mask and disposable coveralls. After you remove it, wipe the floor down, strip outside then hop in the shower.
Not really a big deal.

>>476008

I think what you've got there is actually linoleum, not vinyl, and in that case probably doesn't contain asbestos.

>>476008
Unless you have access to a big sander, I'd say fuck trying to restore the wood. It's way too much of a bitch to remove old multi-purpose or vinyl glue from a floor by hand after it's been there for a long time.

Easy mode:
>Pull vinyl
>Replace with newer vinyl that looks like wood if you want, or just about any other vinyl.
>Requires almost no prep aside cleaning the floor and ensuring there is no big lumps.
>Done.

Hard mode:
>Rent big sander
>Remove vinyl
>Have fun going through sanding disks and getting dust all over the god damned place. If anything is white, you're going to most likely stain the fucking stuff.
>Stuck with shitty sub-flooring
>Stain it
>Varnish
>Done.

Fuck that shit mode:
>Do the sanding by hand.

Seriously though, from experience it is more work than it's worth to redo sub-flooring. The wood is usually not high quality stuff either and will never look that great.

>>476102
not sure were you're getting your information, but lots of 'linoleum' floor coveings contained asbestos from that era. The adhesive most likely contained asbestos as well.

The only real way to know is to have a sample tested by labs specializing in asbestos testing. (about 100$ per sample)

Anyway, most people just re-floor directly over "questionable" floors. Its the safest and cheapest option

Thanks for the help guys, i'll probably end up just putting new stuff over it. The room this is in isn't nearly important enough to warrant days (weeks?) worth of work

Six inch and twelve inch tile are safe, 9 inch and 18inch tile are almost certain to contain asbestos

op sometimes with the floors depending on how its glued you just have to hit it with a heat gun till it starts to turn brown then cut it into little squares and lift it off a little by little

>>476008

well assuming you aren't planning on power sanding the linoleum flooring into dust I wouldn't worry about asbestos, even though the backing almost certainly contains it

just make sure to spray down and cleanup the area thoroughly after removal

>>476008
Old vinyl is very easy to remove. If the bottom layer is wood, the adhesive is probably very brittle by now. A chisel and hammer would do the job easily.