Vinyl Wallpaper Asbestos

Asbestos is a mineral that lends fireproofing qualities to any substance it is mixed with.

Vinyl wallpaper asbestos.

If you do have old vinyl wallpaper in your home it could contain asbestos and should be carefully and promptly removed or replaced. However if the wallpaper is in a high traffic area or touched frequently it s a good idea to remove it as this is likely to cause exposure. Older buildings may still have asbestos containing wallpaper on their interior walls. Today it is possible to use vinyl wallpaper without toxicity concerns.

This friable state can turn to dust and release millions of microscopic asbestos fibers into the room. Asbestos has been used in vinyl wallpaper since the 1920s and vinyl floor tiles and sheet flooring rose to prominence in the 1950s. This old wallpaper as well as the wallpaper paste contained some form of asbestos. If you are thinking about buying new wallpaper and wondering if it has asbestos in it the answer is no.

If done incorrectly it can release the asbestos in to your home. In addition vinyl wallpaper typically contained asbestos an extremely harmful chemical that is known to cause mesothelioma. For wallpaper asbestos would be found in the finest wallpaper usually found in large 40 room houses not a typical flat. Dried asbestos fibers in vinyl wallpaper can broke down and crumble.

For about 35 years flooring companies included asbestos when they manufactured the vinyl tiles. In the late 1970s when it was made widely known how toxic asbestos was vinyl wallpaper was no longer manufactured using asbestos but products containing the deadly mineral continued to be sold through the 1980s. If present it would be in the backing. Removing old wallpaper can be down right dangerous.

In those cases it was actually. If your home was remodeled with wallpaper between 1930 through the late 1980 s you may be at risk for asbestos exposure. But the flooring companies aim wasn t so much to make the floor tiles fireproof as it was to make the tiles more durable. The wondrous new no wax flooring sold by companies such as congoleum put a glossy sheen on post war american prosperity.