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DIY & Home Improvement

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sl8

(16,284 posts)
Fri Jan 20, 2023, 08:11 AM Jan 2023

Cautionary tale: Asbestos [View all]

Note that this is a Reddit post, so, no particular inherent credibilty, but I found it believable. Also, note that this is a Reddit repost; it has links to the original posts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/10gfdaa/oop_exposed_his_family_to_a_toxic_cancer_causing/

So I messed up bad, real bad. One more warning to all before you start and project that requires demo.

Two weekends ago, me and my wife decided it was time to replace our falling apart laminate floors. The location of the laminate we were replacing was in the kitchen, dining room, family room, Living room, and main hallway. We thought it would be nice to have all the rooms including the kitchen and dining room all one floor.

So we ripped up all of the old click laminate. In the hallways and family room we found original 1970's vinyl underneath. Since we planned on laying the floating floors again we decided to leave it alone. We proceed to chipping up all of the tile in the kitchen making our way to the dining room. We got the tile up in the kitchen and were left with an absolute mess of thinset. So I googled the easiest way to get up thinset. I found a video on youtube showing how to use a grinder with a shopvac attachment and diamond grinding wheel. I went to town and it worked a treat and I was super proud how well it came out.

Heres where my story goes south, 2 days later my dad came over to check the progress we made. I was showing him the kitchen explaining the process I used to quickly take the thinset off. My father proceeded to look at the floor and asked what was the material on it. I said its concrete (it appeared to be anyways), he said no it's not. He proceeded to grab a utility knife and cut a small square of material off the floor where I had ground down the thinset. It was a paper like material that was brittle. He said it looked to be the paper backing that came with old vinyl sheet flooring. He looked over at the family room, saw the old sheet flooring and told my that I needed to get out of the house and get the materials tested. So I packed up the wife and kids and headed to my parents house for the weekend.

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