Ohhhh man what a nightmare! One day I decided that I hated the heinous 1980's faux brick beige sheet linoleum that was on the floor in my kitchen. I went to a salvage store and I found some large 16X16 squares of vintage school floor tile that I thought would look groovy and much better than the nasty old stuff that was currently on the floor. I (for whatever reason) assumed that the sheet linoleum that was vinyl was the only thing adhered to the floor and that there was probably sub floor beneath it. Welll....yea, that was not the case at all.
My house was once my grandmothers house and she was a heavy smoker which was why I really wanted the linoleum gone. The vinyl layer was actually very easy to pry up because it had become quite brittle with age and nicotine permeation - it had after all been on the floor for probably 30 years. However, the vinyl was laid over the COOLEST 1950's vinyl that sadly was too damaged by the other vinyl adhesive to keep. This vinyl was gray speckled with gold which is very similar to the tile I found at the salvage yard but without the gold. This tile was also a vinyl, but it had a paper backing on it that was adhered to yet ANOTHER layer of flooring. Once I saw the paper backing I knew it had asbestos in it. What a lot of people do not know is that asbestos was put in just about everything because it was a great binding agent and it was fire retardant. Now we know its a cancer causing agent and you should wet it down and/or have it professionally removed because you can inhale the particles.
Well, I was about half way through the removal of the first two layers of flooring before I thought to myself "hum, I should probably wear a mask". Anyway, with the mask now on I removed the rest of the two top layers of flooring. This is where the problems began.
The first layer of flooring was really thick green marbled asbestos tile. This was adhered to the floor with this black, goopy, sticky tar that I found out is called Cutback and it was used in the 1930's to lay down asbestos tile. This stuff is almost impossible to remove. Luckily, the area in front of the sink and around where the appliances were the tile and cutback came up together relatively easy. The center of the floor was another story. The cutback was laid down about 1/4 of an inch thick. I read on another blog that a lady rented and used a wallpaper steamer to remove her asbestos tile and cutback, but knowing it would take a few weeks of intermittent work it did not seem practical to rent a steamer. So, my mother remembered that she had a heat gun at the house and we started melting the tile and the cutback to get it off the floor.
If the floor had been sub floor I would have just said forget it and put another layer of sub floor over the mess and tiled over it with my new groovy tile...but...Under all that tile mess are hardwood floors that are the same as the rest of the house and they are in perfect condition. So, now I feel compelled to save the old hardwoods and refinish them, which means I need to get ALL the old tile up and get as much cutback off the floor as possible. I took some pictures that I will post later, but as of now we are just about done removing the old cutback....To be continued...
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