Before You Renovate: Asbestos Risks in Pre-1980s Homes

After my wife and I married, we bought our first home, a 1950s bungalow. Original wood floors, circa 1970 kitchen vinyl floor tiles, and a converted garage into a bedroom using the same ugly tiles. We spent the next eight years renovating parts of it to make it more livable for us. But when I removed the first ugly kitchen tile, I saw the black adhesive and stopped. I knew it was asbestos.

What is Asbestos?

Asbestos was popularly used in U.S. home construction from the early 1900s through the late 1980s, with peak usage between the 1950s and 1970s. It is a naturally occurring, inexpensive mineral with extraordinary physical properties, including high tensile strength and resistance to heat, fire, electricity, and chemical corrosion.

Exposure to it causes cancer when a multi-step physical and biological process is triggered when microscopic mineral fibers are inhaled or swallowed.

When I decided to renovate our 1950s kitchen and saw the black adhesive, I knew I had to call an expert to test it and make sure it was safe for me to continue. Unfortunately, it was asbestos, which meant we had to call an asbestos removal company to take it out.

Identifying Asbestos:

It’s important to know that asbestos is hard to identify simply by sight. Because I had studied building materials in college, including asbestos, I knew what to look out for when removing the vinyl tiles in our bungalow, but I also had experts out to make sure I was right.

However, asbestos in home materials may look like fibrous, fluffy, or crumbly textures in insulation, floor tiles, ceiling coatings, and pipe wrappings. Before beginning any project in your older home, it’s a good idea to contact an asbestos abatement company before doing anything.

Homes built before 1980 often had popcorn ceilings, vinyl floor tiles (like what was in our home), pipe insulation, attic insulation, drywall joint compound, and cement siding.

Lab testing is required to confirm its presence.

If you suspect asbestos, don’t disturb the material. Contact a licensed asbestos professional.

There is no known safe level of asbestos exposure (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health or NIOSH).

Asbestos-Related Health Issues

Prolonged or repeated exposure can cause mesothelioma, lung cancer, and other serious diseases. A licensed professional can test materials, assess risk, and recommend next steps based on the condition and location of asbestos in the home.

Asbestos in your home is dangerous as it ages, wears down, gets damaged, and is disturbed. The risk is lower if licensed professionals contain it or it remains in good condition and undisturbed. However, no amount of exposure to asbestos is safe. Prolonged or repeated exposure raises the risk of developing asbestos-related diseases.

Asbestos fibers can get stuck in your body’s tissues, irritating them, which over time can lead to the development of mesothelioma. This aggressive cancer forms tumors on the lining of the lungs, abdomen, or heart. Mesothelioma has a long dormancy period of 20 to 60 years. This means the time from when asbestos fibers were inhaled to when symptoms appear can take decades.

Most asbestos-related diseases like asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma are diagnosed at least 15 years after exposure, according to the American Cancer Society.

The EPA began restricting its use in 1973 and finalized a chrysotile (a fibrous form of the mineral serpentine; white asbestos) asbestos ban in March 2024.

Legacy Asbestos by Era

Asbestos is a natural mineral known for its strength and heat resistance. Toxic asbestos fibers were mixed into construction materials. Many older homes, particularly those built before the 1980s, still contain these legacy asbestos products. If you’re DIY-ing renovations, use caution. Asbestos fibers can be released into the air and inhaled.

From the early 1900s-1940s, asbestos was used in boiler and pipe insulation, roofing felt, cement siding, and asphalt floor tiles.

Throughout the 1950s–1970s, it was in vinyl floor tiles, drywall joint compound, popcorn ceilings, vermiculite attic insulation, and spray-on insulation.

By the mid-to-late 1980s, builders began to phase out most products following the EPA partial ban in 1989.

Today, no newly constructed homes use asbestos.

What Should A Homeowner Know?

If your home was built or last renovated before the late 1980s, assume asbestos may be present. Contact a licensed professional to test materials before starting any renovation work. A licensed professional can assess which materials pose the greatest risk based on their age, condition, and location (American Cancer Society).

Doing It Yourself: What to Know:

The most common ways homeowners encounter asbestos are during DIY renovation work. Examples include drilling through drywall, replacing an old pipe, or removing popcorn ceilings. These activities can release tiny asbestos fibers into the air, contaminating the room. If fibers settle on your clothes, hair, skin, or shoes, you can carry them through your home, spreading the risk to others in your household.

Removing asbestos from our bungalow cost around $2000 in 2004. It was worth it, though. Our son was a toddler, and we didn’t want him crawling on the kitchen floor as some of the tile glue was breaking down. The process was easy, and once it was gone, I laid an environmentally safe floor.

In my next blog post, I’ll detail the cost, how to prepare for asbestos removal, and what to expect when having asbestos removed from your older home.