Asbestos Floor Tile Removal in Surbiton
Behind the carpet and lino in a lot of Surbiton homes sits an old tiled floor, and under that, a layer of black adhesive. Both can hold asbestos, and both turn up the moment a floor refit starts.
Old Floors Under Surbiton's Carpets
Lift the carpet in a Surbiton kitchen or hallway and you often find the same thing. A floor of small, hard tiles, usually nine inches square, in muddy greens, browns or off-white, bedded onto the concrete with a layer of black, tar-like glue. They sit in the grand villas around Maple Road and Claremont Road, in the flats and maisonettes those villas were split into, and in the 1930s semis that run out towards Tolworth and Berrylands. Plenty of them have been hidden under newer flooring for decades.
Both the tiles and the black adhesive under them date from a time when asbestos was a normal building material. Thermoplastic and vinyl floor tiles often had asbestos mixed into them for strength, and the bitumen glue that holds them down frequently does too. Most of Surbiton's housing went up well before asbestos was banned in the UK in 1999, so in the older properties it is the floors as much as the roofs and ceilings that need a second look.
Left alone under a carpet, a tiled floor like this is not doing any harm. The problem starts when someone decides to change it.
How It Surfaces During a Floor Refit
Most people find these tiles by accident. A kitchen is being refitted on Victoria Road, a hallway is going from carpet to engineered wood, a maisonette near The Crescent is being done up between tenants. The old covering comes up, and there underneath is a tiled floor nobody knew was there, often cracked or lifting at the edges where it has been walked on for years.
That is the point to stop. The tiles themselves are usually solid and low-risk while they are whole, but cracked and broken ones, and any attempt to chisel them up dry, can release fibres into the room. The bigger issue is almost always the black adhesive bedded into the screed underneath. It clings hard, it does not lift cleanly with the tiles, and people tend to attack it with scrapers, heat or a sander to get a flat surface for the new floor. That is exactly the work that puts asbestos dust into the air of a house someone is living in.
So before any of that happens, the safe move is to have the floor tested. A small sample of the tile and the glue goes to a UKAS-accredited laboratory, and the result tells us plainly what is there. You cannot judge it by colour or age. Two floors that look the same can come back completely differently, and we will not start lifting anything until we know.
Why the Adhesive Takes Longer Than the Tiles
On most Surbiton floors the tiles are the easy part. Whole tiles can be lifted with hand tools and bagged as they come up, kept intact so they stay contained. It is the black bitumen adhesive welded to the concrete that takes the time and the care, and it is the reason floor jobs are slower and messier than people expect.
We do not dry-grind it off. Removing that adhesive safely means keeping it wet and working it off the screed by hand, or taking the affected layer of screed with it, rather than sanding it into dust. The waste, tiles and glue and any contaminated screed, is double-bagged, sealed and taken to a licensed facility, and you get the consignment note that proves it went there.
Because nearly all of this happens inside an occupied home, containment matters more than on an outdoor garage roof. We seal the room off from the rest of the house with sheeting, run the work under negative pressure with proper air filtration so nothing drifts down the hall, and keep doors and walkways protected. When the floor is clear, the air in the room is tested before we take the sheeting down, so the space is handed back clean and ready for your new floor to go straight on top.
Surbiton Floors, Done Properly
Surbiton is on Clearaway's doorstep. We are based a few minutes away in Chessington, KT9, so the KT5 and KT6 streets around the station, Berrylands, Long Ditton, Hook and the riverside houses along Portsmouth Road are our home patch. A same-week survey is normal here, and the owner, Graham, runs local jobs himself rather than handing them off.
For a straightforward domestic floor that is non-licensed, lower-risk work, and most are, we test first, lift the tiles, clear the adhesive and air-test the room, usually inside a day or two. Where the lab finds a higher-risk material that needs licensed handling, the standard is stricter. We give the HSE the 14 days' notice the law requires, work under full enclosure, and finish with four-stage clearance testing by an independent analyst before the room is signed off.
Either way the floor is left clean, the waste is gone with the paperwork to prove it, and you can lay your new floor knowing what came up was dealt with properly. We hold Spectra licence number 142305706 and have worked across Surbiton and the wider Kingston area for more than seven years. To book a survey on your floor, call the team on 0800 024 6168.
Asbestos Vinyl Floor Tile Removal & Bitumen Sealing, Surbiton
Surbiton, Surrey · Floor Tile Removal
View this project"Graham and his staff done a great job of removing my concrete and asbestos garage thank you"
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Choose Clearaway
On Our Home Patch
We work out of Chessington, right on the edge of the KT postcodes, so a same-week survey here is the norm, not the exception.
The Owner On The Job
On local work Graham quotes and runs the job himself. You deal with the person doing the work from first call to final certificate.
Fully Licensed
Licensed asbestos removal contractor (Licence No. 142305706). Full public liability insurance on every job.
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.