Replies

1. 
   AP302 | Dec 14, 2002 12:48am | #1

   Wight or wrong  -  all I can tell you is what I did in a small room off a kitchen. After peeling off all the top layers, I rented a floor drum sander and all the sandpaper they would let me have.  Kept changing the paper a lot and tried to keep moving so I would not melt the stuff into a puddle or grind it into the wood.  By the way it's probably butimun or a tar based mastic also no asbestos in linoleum. You might have to do some picking and scraping in spots, but not a years worth.  Whole deal took a couple of days for about 150 sq ft.  Good Luck

1. 
   john31136 | Dec 14, 2002 01:03am | #2

   No asbestos in linoleum?  Can you please clarify that one?

2. 
   Frankie | Dec 14, 2002 02:50am | #3

   We come across it all the time in prewar apartments. You ain't never gettin rid of it. What's the existing subfloor material? Probably plank laid on the diagonal? If the subfloor is sound, lay some 1/2" CDX and move on. You will be moving forward. Scrapping the sh#t is a total waste of LOTS of time.

3. 
   BKCBUILDER | Dec 14, 2002 03:02am | #4

   Don't listen to these guys. It's actually very easy to get off and here is how. Find the local dry-ice supplier, buy a 10# block(should be $2.00/lb) Have them cut it into 1" thick slabs. Take these , a few at a time and lay them on the black stuff, cover with a towel, and wait a few minutes. Move them to the next spot, and take your scrapper and pop off the adhesive. The dry-ice freezes it and makes it very brittle, it just breaks up easy and clean.

     And were did this friggin bold lettering come from ?

1. 
   Piffin | Dec 14, 2002 07:45am | #5

   When chips of dry ice fall out of your eyebrows on the keyboard, the CO2 can cause bold lettering fontsicles.

   Excellence is its own reward!

   "The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.

   The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."

   --Marcus Aurelius

4. 
   woodwright7 | Dec 16, 2002 06:13am | #6

   I would recommend finding a floor covering that you like and covering up the black stuff.  As one of the other replies already said it is likely a bitumen mastic.  Based on the age of your house it probably does contain asbestos.  Anything you do to remove it will probably release at least some asbestos fibers into the air.

   The problem with asbestos exposure is that without very careful containment it will get all over your house.  Breathing the dust may not do anything, or it may cause severe illness that won't how up for years....Why take the chance?

1. 
   plantlust | Dec 16, 2002 08:45am | #7

   Kitchen.  Hideous split pea soup green LT and underneath was the black tarry substance.  I used a heatgun to melt the substance, let it cool and was able to scrape a majority off the BEAUTIFUL 3/4inch t&g maple flooring which was lurking underneath.  After refinishing it's a stunning floor.  "S e x on a first date?!?!  If you see a penny on the street, do you pick it up and put it in your mouth?  I think NOT!"midwestern expatriate in NYC  

    

1. 
   rez | Dec 16, 2002 06:42pm | #10

   Wish I knew why people had that thang for green back then.  They couldn't have stayed with neutral earth tones, had to go green, various shades, sometimes pretty bright. Saw a 50s house once with original interior paint. A Turquois Greenblue. All walls and the ceilings in the hallways. Must have been like living in a tunnel.You pompous egotistical redneck, it's not a ponytail. I'm just getting ready for a mean combover and it'll look a lot better than yours!

    

    

5. 
   grassbur501 | Dec 16, 2002 09:56am | #8

   Keith is right.  I've had the same experience.  The extreme cold changes the properties of the old mastic and it just lets go.  If you have any little areas that continue to stick, do it again and they'll come up with a putty knife.  The heat gun will work too, but it makes a terrible mess, and you'll be having nightmares of festering black goo for weeks. 

   Seems like common wisdom these days is that every substance used in building and decorating before 1975 contained lead or asbestos, and there are hundreds of folks who will be happy to "clean your toxic house" for you as they clean your wallet.  It behooves anyone who works on old houses to know what contains what.  Linoleum doesn't contain asbestos.  I wonder, however, if the brains of the folks who wanted to cover up that fine wood with linoleum, and use a tar-based mastic to do it, might have contained some.

   Mac

6. 
   Catskinner | Dec 16, 2002 05:58pm | #9

   Just in case any of these other ideas don't work (who knows what that stuff really is?) we went through the same thing on a kitchen floor. I assure that if you really do have fir under there your efforts will be well worthwhile.

   We broke up the linoleum as best we could, and put rags soaked in odorless mineral spirits on the floor. The goo scraped right up.

   We then used about $150 worth of sanding screens on a pad-type floor sander.

   Mixed some cherry and pecan stain, thinned it out to color-blend what was left of the mastic residue into the floor, covered it with a good polyurethane, and it looks exactly like what it is -- a very old wood floor.

   Goes with the rest of the house just fine.

   You can bet I'm trying the dry ice nect time, though. Sounds way easier and safer.

   Don't give up. It's worth the effort.

   DRC

7. 
   BarryE | Dec 16, 2002 07:11pm | #11

   Maybe the linoleum doesn't contain asbestos, but the backing of the linoleum usually did. The black mastic, called cutback adhesive, will also contain asbestos.

   The preferable methods are ones that don't cause fibers to start floating around the room, say for instance, dry sanding.

   Keith's method sounds interesting. Also if you do a google for "black mastic" or "cutback adhesive" there are strippers on the market specifically made for this adhesive.

   ---

   View Image

   Barry E

1. 
   MIKEBUETTNER | Dec 16, 2002 09:45pm | #12

   I've been in this same situation before. You can likely get an asbestos test from a sample for around $30. Then you can make a decision whether to remove it or not. Sanding is the worst as it breaks up the asbestos and puts it in the air everywhere. But again then it becomes a personal decision based on your worries for yourself and anyone else in the home.I ended up filling the unevenness with spackle and laying down an underlayment thereby encapsulating the asbestos.

   bit

8. 
   Ragnar17 | Dec 18, 2002 04:19am | #13

   Bitman's right: just get a sample of the stuff tested and then you'll know what you're up against.  You might be worrying for nothing.

   A client of mine had some black gooey stuff on her fir floors, too.  We tested it, it came back negative, and the flooring guy sanded it all off in just about an hour or so.

   Good luck - and get that test done!

   Ragnar