What an old floor may hide, and who may take it up.

The floor under the floor

Not every polishing job starts on bare concrete. A floor that has been covered for forty years is still the same slab, and the pass that polishes it is the pass that has to get through whatever is lying on top. Queensland’s code for removing asbestos keeps a section on floor tiles alone, which tells you how ordinary they are: its guidance on removal treats a tiled floor as a removal job in its own right.

Before anything else, the age of the house does most of the work. The NSW Environment Protection Authority puts a date on it: a house from before 1990 probably holds asbestos materials. SafeWork NSW draws its line a little earlier, telling people working on a home or building from before the late 1980s that asbestos may be present, and naming flooring along with kitchens and bathrooms as common places to find it.

Material by material

Floor coverings are not one material, and the differences between them change what the rules allow. Material by material:

• Vinyl and PVC tiles. Queensland’s code says these often hold 5 to 7 per cent of very fine chrysotile asbestos.
• Felt carpet underlay. The same state’s homeowner pages treat some felt carpet underlay as friable asbestos, which only a removalist with an ‘A’ class licence may take up.
• The backing of some vinyl floor coverings. WorkSafe Victoria’s alert on flood-damaged homes describes this backing as friable: it can break up easily and give off fibres that can be breathed in.
• Wet areas. Victoria’s compliance code for managing asbestos in workplaces notes that bathrooms, toilets and laundries may carry asbestos sheeting or asbestos vinyl tiles in their walls and floors, because the material was hard-wearing and resisted water.
• Linoleum’s paper backing. WA’s Department of Health records that the paper backing on linoleum flooring in older homes may contain white asbestos.
• Under floors, behind tiles, in underlay. Tasmania’s alert says asbestos has gone into more than 3,000 products, the home-repair kinds among them, and its list of likely places includes carpet underlay, tiles that may have it behind them, and the space beneath vinyl flooring.
• Floor tiles as a class. South Australia’s asbestos agency puts floor tiles among the non-friable, bonded products commonly found in domestic buildings, alongside flat fibre cement sheeting and corrugated roofing and fencing.

The line that decides the job is the one between bonded and friable. Floor tiles sit on the bonded side: South Australia counts them among the non-friable products common in domestic buildings. Felt underlay and the backing of some vinyl are described by the agencies as friable.

The homes these floors come from

Asbestos was not a rare additive; it was a stock material. WA’s health department records that asbestos cement, which it gives as containing 10 to 15 per cent asbestos, was widely used in building materials, and that in older homes these products may still sit beneath later renovations, in the walls, the floors and the ceiling spaces.

That is why the age of a building is a question and not an answer. Asbestos Queensland, writing about buildings damaged by fire, says the products are likely to be found in domestic and commercial buildings put up or renovated before 1990, and that the bonded ones found there take in floor tiles, flat fibre cement sheeting for walls and ceilings, and corrugated roofing. A floor covering proves nothing on its own; the date of the building raises the question.

When the old floor can stay where it is

Two NSW agencies say the same thing in different words, and it is the sentence nobody expects. The presence of asbestos is not the same as a health risk. NSW Health puts it directly: a finding of bonded asbestos in good condition does not by itself mean your health is at risk, and if the material is not damaged it generally does not need to be removed.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority says materials in and around a home are often best left where they are when they are in good condition and unlikely to be damaged. South Australia’s guidance on flood-damaged homes says only broken and dislodged material should be removed.

For a floor, that test has a hard edge. The advice to leave good material where it is, is advice about not disturbing it. The moment the plan is to polish the concrete, something has to disturb the covering, because the work that reaches the slab is the work that takes the covering up first.

What tools do at this depth

The agencies name the acts that damage these materials, and the list is short. NSW Health says asbestos can be damaged by being cut, drilled or water blasted, and that damaging it releases small fibres into the air. The ACT’s asbestos page goes further for tools in general: using them on these products can release large amounts of asbestos fibres. It adds the reason this matters more than it looks: the fibres are very fine, and easily breathed in.

NSW’s asbestos site has a rule of thumb for the moment when you are not sure what you are looking at: treat anything that might be asbestos as though it were, stop the work, clear the area and get help. That advice is for a household finding something it did not expect, which is what a slab looks like once the covering above it has come away.

What the old backing leaves on the slab

South Australia’s asbestos agency names the problem in one line: residue from an asbestos backing can be left behind on a floor, and once that residue dries, disturbing it can send fibres into the air. WorkSafe Victoria’s alert on flood-damaged homes carries the same description and recommends that floor covering with an asbestos backing be taken up by a licensed asbestos removalist. South Australia’s agency reaches the same recommendation from the same fact. In South Australia it is also the law: SafeWork SA requires a Class A licence to remove vinyl floor coverings with that backing, as the licence section below sets out.

Two states, the same recommendation, resting on the same fact.

Queensland’s public health regulation anticipates the result for bonded material as well: its requirements for removals outside workplaces put a duty on the person doing the work to seal a broken surface of bonded material that is not being taken out.

What “clean” means, where it is written down

Queensland’s asbestos pages describe the end of the job in the most detail, and the detail shows what a finished surface is meant to be. Asbestos Queensland, in its guidance on the licensed removal of friable material, says a work site has to be cleaned of all its dust in a way that does not spread the fibres further, and access should be restricted to those involved in the work with the necessary safety equipment.

Queensland’s code for removing asbestos rules out the obvious household answer. A household vacuum cleaner should not be used anywhere asbestos is present, or might be, whatever filter it carries.

In Queensland a clearance inspection belongs to licensed removal work: Asbestos Queensland describes it as an inspection of an area after licensed asbestos removal work has been completed, to verify that it is safe for normal use. The Queensland pages linked here describe no clearance certificate for a householder’s own removal. For licensed work, the same page sets out what a clearance certificate rests on: it can only be issued once the licensed asbestos assessor, or the competent person, is satisfied that the conditions are met, including, where air monitoring formed part of the inspection, a fibre concentration below 0.01 fibres per millilitre. Where air monitoring was part of the inspection, the certificate also rests on the air.

One question, eight rulebooks

Asbestos Queensland opens its homeowner page on the subject with a warning about the shape of the law itself: taking asbestos materials out of homes and out of workplaces sits under different obligations in different laws, and the removal should only be done with the specific care that avoids releasing fibres into the air. Removal is regulated jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and the differences start with the simplest question of all: who is allowed to do the work.

Each row below is that jurisdiction’s own rule, named with the body that says it and linked to the exact page.

What each jurisdiction says

Queensland

In Queensland, a renovator or an owner-builder must hold a certificate, issued under arrangements Queensland Health approves, to remove more than 10 square metres of non-friable (bonded) asbestos material. Below that figure no certificate is needed, but the material must not be friable and the work must follow adequate safety precautions. The state’s code for managing asbestos adds a sentence a household rarely sees: no duties fall on the homeowner under the WHS Regulation.

New South Wales

Taking out less than 10 square metres of bonded asbestos-containing material does not require a licensed removalist, the state’s page says, but it still carries a health risk unless the right precautions are taken, including personal protective equipment. The state’s guidance for homes adds that home owners who do it must take the same strict safety precautions as professional removalists. NSW Health’s page records that SafeWork NSW recommends a licensed asbestos professional for removing non-friable asbestos of any amount, because of the risks the work carries.

Victoria

The Better Health Channel says householders may legally remove asbestos from their own property, and that only a licensed professional should take out the loosely-bound kind. Householders who do the work themselves must follow strict precautions to protect their family, their neighbours and the environment. WorkSafe Victoria supplies the reason the question stays complicated in that state: its page records that Victoria’s OHS Act and Regulations stop at the boundary of a workplace, so a home that is not also one sits outside them, while other legislation may still reach homeowners if fibres are released.

Western Australia

Owners may take up to 10 square metres of non-friable asbestos out of their own home themselves, WorkSafe WA says, but must follow strict safety steps when they do.

South Australia

The state’s asbestos agency records that a homeowner needs no licence of their own to take material from their property, and recommends a licensed removalist for the jobs it calls best left to the experts. EPA South Australia sets the limit on that: without a licence, a person may take out no more than 10 square metres of non-friable material. Its guide sets the harder line for friable material: that should only come out under a licensed asbestos removalist.

Tasmania

WorkSafe Tasmania says no removal licence is needed below 10 square metres of non-friable asbestos, provided the work follows the state’s code of practice for removing it safely. Its fact-versus-myth page gives the plain version of the advice: untrained people should have asbestos taken out by a licensed removalist rather than trying it themselves.

Australian Capital Territory

The territory is the strict one. From 1 January 2015, removing asbestos and asbestos-containing material from any premises, workplaces and non-workplaces alike, is not permitted unless an appropriately licensed removalist does it, though WorkSafe ACT makes an exception for removal that is part of minor routine maintenance or other minor work.

Northern Territory

The territory places no restriction on how much asbestos, or which type, a household may remove from its own house, but transport and disposal requirements still apply, and the advice is to contact the local council about disposing of the waste.

What a licence means where one is needed

Two states publish the split in full, and it turns on the same physical difference the coverings above turn on. SafeWork SA issues a Class B licence for non-friable material only, which its page gives as asbestos cement products such as fibro and other bonded material such as floor tiles, and a Class A licence for asbestos-backed vinyl floor coverings and the other friable products. In Queensland the same boundary catches felt carpet underlay: the state treats some of it as friable asbestos, which only a removalist holding an ‘A’ class licence may take up.

Put in floor terms: in South Australia, floor tiles fall under the Class B licence and asbestos-backed vinyl floor coverings under Class A, so two coverings in one room can need different licences there.

The agency that covers the whole country has one line for this

The agency’s page is national guidance; the licence rules above are state and territory law. Where the two meet, the licence rule decides what may be done, and the agency’s line, set out with the rules that hold under any floor covering further down this page, is the advice on whether it should be done.

The part the ten square metres does not settle

A figure under the licence threshold is not a safety threshold, and the New South Wales page says so. New South Wales puts the two ideas in one sentence: the small removal does not need a licensed removalist, and it still carries a health risk unless the right precautions are taken, personal protective equipment among them.

The floor’s other question starts once the covering is up. What the machine then meets in the slab is a different rulebook entirely, and that is the dust guide. What the surface can be made into afterwards is the finishes guide, and what the job washes away, and when its noise is restricted, is the last guide.

This guide is general information from the regulators named in each row; the decision for one property belongs to its own state or territory.