• Vinyl and asphalt flooring materials produced or installed before 1981 may contain asbestos.
• Various safety precautions must be taken in working with asbestos flooring materials, such as not sanding flooring, using wet methods to remove backing, removing tiles intact, and more.

For removing vinyl and asphalt flooring materials containing asbestos or installed in buildings constructed before 1981 and not verified as asbestos-free, employers must ensure that workers observe the following:

• Do not sand flooring or its backing.
• Do not rip up resilient sheeting.
• Do not dry sweep.
• Perform mechanical chipping only in a negative-pressure enclosure.
• Use vacuums equipped with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters to clean floors.
• Remove resilient sheeting by cutting with wetting of the snip point and wetting during delamination.
• Use wet methods to scrape residual adhesives and/or backing.
• Remove tiles intact, unless impossible (the wetting step may be omitted when tiles are heated and removed intact).
• Assume resilient flooring material — including associated mastic and backing — is asbestos-containing unless an industrial hygienist determines that it is asbestos-free.