Asbestos Floor Tile Removal in Chiswick
Lift the old lino or carpet in a Chiswick kitchen and you often find the original floor underneath. Vinyl tiles, and the black adhesive holding them down, can contain asbestos in houses this age. We remove both, cleanly.
What turns up under a Chiswick floor
Chiswick has a lot of old floors. The period terraces around Turnham Green and along Chiswick High Road, the Edwardian and 1930s housing running out towards Gunnersbury and Grove Park, the larger places split into flats: most of them have been refloored more than once over the years. Somewhere in that history, often in the 1960s and 1970s, a layer of vinyl or thermoplastic tile went down. Carpet or sheet lino went over the top later, and the tiles were forgotten.
They only come back into view during a refit. A kitchen gets ripped out, a floor gets levelled for new boards, and when the carpet comes up there is a grid of small square tiles bedded onto the concrete. They are usually nine inches across, sometimes a dull brown, green or off-white, and they have been there long enough that nobody knows what they are. In houses of this age, plenty of them contain asbestos, and so does the dark glue stuck to the back.
The black adhesive is the real problem
The tiles themselves are the easy part. They were made with the asbestos locked into the material, so as long as they are intact they sit fairly stable, and they lift in whole pieces. The trouble is what is underneath. The black, tarry adhesive that bonded them to the screed, often called bitumen, is where the work actually lies, and it is far more stubborn than the tiles.
That glue does not scrape off in a clean sheet. It has soaked into the surface of the concrete and gone hard over decades, and people trying to shift it with a sander or a grinder is exactly how the fibres get into the air. A floor that looked like a quick job becomes the messiest part of the whole refit. We treat the adhesive as the main task, not an afterthought, and take it back properly rather than smearing it around or grinding it dry.
You cannot tell by looking whether the tiles or the adhesive contain asbestos. A black bitumen glue is a common warning sign in a floor this old, but the only way to be sure is a sample sent to a UKAS-accredited laboratory before anyone starts lifting anything.
Keeping the dust off the rest of the house
Most of these floors are in homes people are still living in, or flats with neighbours sharing the building, so the job has to stay sealed off from everywhere else. Floor work throws up fine dust, and in a Chiswick conversion that dust will travel up a stairwell and into other rooms if it is left to. The point of containing it is simple. Whatever comes off that floor stays in that room.
We seal the work area, take the tiles up whole, and lift the adhesive under control rather than sending a cloud of it through the flat. Waste goes out bagged and sealed to a licensed facility, and there is usually no skip sat on the road outside. For a single kitchen or a small floor the work is often done inside a day, though a large area of stubborn bitumen takes longer. Once we are finished, the air is tested before the room goes back into use, so you know the space is clear and not just looking clear.
Parts of Chiswick sit inside conservation areas, Bedford Park and the riverside houses on Chiswick Mall among them, and some of those houses are listed. On those we work around the restrictions and protect the original fabric, which matters as much underfoot as anywhere else in a house worth keeping.
How a Chiswick floor job runs
It usually starts with a phone call mid-refit, when a kitchen fitter or a builder has pulled up the old covering and stopped at the sight of the tiles. The first step is small and cheap: we sample the tile and the adhesive and send it to the lab. If it comes back clear, the floor is yours to do as you like. If it contains asbestos, we plan the removal around how you are living in the house and how the rooms connect.
Most domestic floor tile work is non-licensed, which keeps it straightforward. Where a job involves higher-risk material it moves to the licensed standard, and that carries its own rules: 14 days of notice to the HSE before we start, full enclosure of the area, and four-stage clearance testing signed off by an independent analyst at the end. We will tell you plainly which side of that line your floor falls on once the results are in, so there are no surprises on the day.
Graham runs the jobs himself, so the person who quotes your floor is the person who does it. Clearaway is based over in Chessington and has been working on homes across this part of west London for more than seven years, and the work is carried out under Spectra licence number 142305706. If you have lifted a carpet in Chiswick and found tiles you were not expecting, call 0800 024 6168 and we will tell you what to do next.
Corrugated Asbestos Sheet Removal, Esher
Esher, Surrey · Sheet Removal
View this project"Graham and his team done an excellent job of removing and replacing my asbestos garage roof and I wouldn't hesitate in recommending them"
Frequently Asked Questions
Our Removal Process
From first call to final certificate, every job follows the same clear four-step process.
Survey
We inspect the property and confirm the material. Sampling available if required.
Quote
Fixed written price covering removal, disposal and any replacement work.
Removal
Material is removed safely, double-wrapped and taken to a licensed disposal facility.
Certificate
You receive a waste consignment note and disposal certificate confirming legal handling.
Why Choose Clearaway
Specialist Crew
Asbestos work is all we do, every day, across the South East.
Fully Licensed
Licensed asbestos removal contractor (Licence No. 142305706). Full public liability insurance on every job.
Local & Fast
Surrey-based. Most domestic jobs are booked in and finished within a week.
Our Own Team
We never subcontract. The people who quote your job are the people who do it.
Get in Touch
Send a few details about your project and we will come back the same working day with a fixed price. We cover Surrey, London and the South East, including Esher, Cobham, Kingston, Richmond, Epsom, Guildford, Woking and Croydon.