Kentile Vinyl Asbestos Tile
Asbestos has been used in vinyl wallpaper since the 1920s and vinyl floor tiles and sheet flooring rose to prominence in the 1950s.
Kentile vinyl asbestos tile. Your tile can most likely go to the curbside with proper labeling. This page and the next three contain four cate gories of excelon. Today in the usa asbestos can still be in products that encapsulate or otherwise bind the fibers such as vinyl floor tile cement pipe and asphalt roofing. Kentile produced both asphalt floor tiles using an asbestos filler see rosato comment below and vinyl asbestos floor tiles.
Armstrong congoleum nairn ever wear kentile kenflex montgomery ward and sears roebuck are some of the brand names of vinyl tile from that period that might contain asbestos. Kentile marbelized a straight grain shown in a gray installed floor above left similar to armstrong straight grain below. The dark floor tiles shown at left may have been asphalt asbestos. Residents can remove their own asbestos without a license if you hire a contractor they must be licensed but you can do it yourself and it must be double bagged.
Because floor tiles are not imprinted with brand names look for previous owners documentation or for excess tiles left by the installers. History of the kentile corporation. Armstrong produced the excelon tile series beginning with a plastic asbestos floor tile series in 1954 referring to the product as vinyl plastic asbestos floor tiles beginning in 1955 and vinyl asbestos tiles from 1957 to 1980. Excelon tile vinyl asbestos the durability economy and high styling combined in to day s offerings in excelon tile provide new measures of floor ing value.
Later light colored tiles were often vinyl based. Below the links will show a photograph of the kentile flooring being described. Kentile floors was founded in 1898 by arthur kennedy in brooklyn new york the company produced large durable vinyl cork and rubber floor tiles many of which incorporated up to 25 asbestos. The wondrous new no wax flooring sold by companies such as congoleum put a glossy sheen on post war american prosperity.