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When removing old linoleum or vinyl flooring, you might be surprised to see smears of black adhesive between the tiles and the subfloor. Those smears and streaks just might be black mastic, a discontinued building product that often contains asbestos.
Mastic is a type of glue used to adhere tiles and vinyl flooring to the subfloor. If your building was built before 1980, mastic mixed with asbestos may have been used to seal your tiles to the floor. Possible signs of asbestos mastic include discoloration and an oily texture. Asbestos mastic will also always be black in color.
Asbestos adhesives can remain hidden under flooring, ceiling and roofing tiles for decades.
Tile mastic adhesive is not normally friable nor even exposed when a vinyl-asbestos tile floor is installed and intact. However there could be a bit of airborne asbestos-containing dust if the floor is demolished using mechanical means.
Asbestos Floor Tile & Mastic Sealant coatings to reduce the Asbestos Hazard & Prep for New Flooring, Strategies for leaving asbestos-containing floor tiles or sheet flooring safely in place in a building
Look out for brand names such as Kentile, KenFlex, Armstrong, Congoleum-Nairn, Everwear, Sears & Roebuck, and Montgomery Ward, which have distributed flooring that may have contained asbestos....
Asbestos adhesives pose health risks once they become worn or damaged. Damaged products can release asbestos fibers. Once disturbed, asbestos fibers can become airborne and be inhaled.