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Getting the Tile Off of the Floors

One of the things that was important to us when we bought the house was getting all of the ugly brown tile and adhesive off of the red oak floors.

This stuff was nasty and noxious.  It had been glued to the floors with black mastic.  Getting the mastic up was so difficult and dirty that we gave up quickly and just contained the mess with duct tape.  Eventually, we moved upstairs and rarely used the two downstairs rooms which were affected.

After Grace was born, I worried a lot more about what the tile was made of.  (Not that I wasn't worried before!)  After all, a lot of vintage tile contains asbestos and we weren't going to just leave it on the floor.  If we were going to leave it there, I wouldn't have worried.  If you don't disturb asbestos and it is in good shape (not friable), you don't have to worry about it.  But, we wanted it out.

I happen to know of cases where homeowners would just rather not know whether the tile contained asbestos or not...sort of a "what I don't know won't hurt me" mentality.  But I was an undergraduate at Purdue...a student who took those OSHA classes with their horrifying case studies and industrial accident forensics.  I KNEW that what I didn't know could hurt me...or Grace or Aaron.  I also knew from sitting through these classes to NEVER to stick my head inside of machinery on an assembly line while cleaning it, but I digress. Although I dreaded knowing so much that it kept me awake at night, I had to know.  Otherwise, everytime Grace coughed a little--for the rest of her life--my first thought would be, "Asbestosis!!!!  I am a bad parent."

So I ordered a residential asbestos test kit from Accukits.

(Disclaimer:  If YOU suspect asbestos or lead paint or anything else in your house, contact a professional.  This blog entry is just a recap of what I'VE done.  It's not a "how to" meant to direct anyone else.)
 

I took some pieces of tile and some separate pieces of the mastic, bagged and labeled them, and sent them in to be tested.  And we waited.

I received an email back within five working days from Reservoirs Environmental, the testing lab that works with Accukits...no asbestos!!!  Whoo hooo!  Party, party, party!  As Cindy from RE was happy to tell me when I called to clarify the results...felt, cellulose, a lot of other things but NOT asbestos.

Still, I didn't want the dust from THIS getting into the rest of the house. 

I have learned (the hard way) that no one will prep a worksite as carefully as the person who has to clean the house.  (I could write a whole entry on that...I will sometime.)  So, the Zipwall was set up.  The entire perimeter of the plastic was sealed to the wall with double-sided tape.  And I went to work on the built-in's within the worksite, sealing them up with painter's tape.

Even the bathroom built-in and medicine cabinet were taped because they were inside of the workspace.

I was happy I had done this.  Why? Here is one of the "after" pictures in the bathroom when the floors had been sanded.  The poor soap dish got caught in the crossfire.  This dust snuck under the bathroom door.  (The bathroom was within the workspace.)

Better to swab down one bathroom than a whole house!  Just to be safe, I also left our Blue Air Filtration Device with the HEPA filters going full blast for the few days we were out of the house. I bought this years ago while we were still in our condo.  It's come in handy ever since.  (Just know if you check out the prices on these?  They used to be a lot more affordable.  They were never cheap, but, wow.  Obviously everyone else discovered how good they are.)

Last step before the reveal?  I loaded up the Swiffer and dusted those walls down.  This dust clings to EVERYTHING! 

Time needed to clean up the workspace after the floors were done?  Two hours (mostly spent on the bathroom).  Time spent worrying that there was something toxic in the air after the floors were done.  Zero hours.

Now THAT is the mark of successful containment in my book.  Containment of the dust AND containment of my paranoia.  Hands down, containment of my paranoia is much, much harder.

Posted by jeanne on August 10, 2006 at 7:39 AM

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