Hello
I’m taking up carpet that’s been down about 10 years. I recall from when it was laid that the carpet fitters left the underlay as it was in decent condition and didn’t need replacing. I don’t recall any mention of anything dodgy.
Anyway, we’re now replacing this carpet with laminate floor. The floor and new fibreboard(?) underlay has been ordered but we’re taking up the old carpet ourselves.
The carpet came up easy enough but underneath the underlay are what appear to be black tiles (on the concrete floor).
I didn’t think anything of this. But as we started to remove the gripper rods around the edge, some of this black material has broken away into small shards.
I was curious about what it could be and Googled it and have now scared myself…
The flat is in a 1960’s ex-council block.
A couple of questions…
1. Could there be an asbestos risk here? If so, what should we do? Is a one-off single exposure like this dangerous? Would the floor fitters refuse to deal with it?
2. Given some of this material has broken away around the edge, will those gaps need to be filled, and if so what with? Or would all the black tiles need to come up?
Thanks for any advice. I’ve attached a couple of photos of one of the broken off pieces.
The floor looks similar to this photo I found on Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/DIYUK/s/pAyjkKGGIc
Am a bit worried because we already took up the gripper rods and have quite a few shards of this stuff that have come away.
I’m taking up carpet that’s been down about 10 years. I recall from when it was laid that the carpet fitters left the underlay as it was in decent condition and didn’t need replacing. I don’t recall any mention of anything dodgy.
Anyway, we’re now replacing this carpet with laminate floor. The floor and new fibreboard(?) underlay has been ordered but we’re taking up the old carpet ourselves.
The carpet came up easy enough but underneath the underlay are what appear to be black tiles (on the concrete floor).
I didn’t think anything of this. But as we started to remove the gripper rods around the edge, some of this black material has broken away into small shards.
I was curious about what it could be and Googled it and have now scared myself…
The flat is in a 1960’s ex-council block.
A couple of questions…
1. Could there be an asbestos risk here? If so, what should we do? Is a one-off single exposure like this dangerous? Would the floor fitters refuse to deal with it?
2. Given some of this material has broken away around the edge, will those gaps need to be filled, and if so what with? Or would all the black tiles need to come up?
Thanks for any advice. I’ve attached a couple of photos of one of the broken off pieces.
The floor looks similar to this photo I found on Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/DIYUK/s/pAyjkKGGIc
Am a bit worried because we already took up the gripper rods and have quite a few shards of this stuff that have come away.
