Black Mastic On Wood Kitchen Subfloor...Should It Be Replaced Before Putting In a Wood Floor

Cat,
Carlos here from carloswoodfloors@gmail.com (JC Martin & Sons).  It really depends on the current state of your floors and your budget.  As a seasoned wood flooring contractor, I’lll tell you that your installation is only as good as the subfloor you’re installing over.  The industry standard is that all subfloors should be clean, dry and flat before wood flooring goes down.  The black mastic is most probably a black cutback vinyl composite tile adhesive which may be asbestos based, that being said you don’t necessarily need to remove it, you can encapsulate it per slopemope’s recommendation.  Contact me via my website if you would like for me to come out and view the project to estimate: http://www.jcmartinrenovation.com/wood-floor-refinishing/

Carlos

in Brownstoner Renovation 12 years and 7 months ago

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happycats | 12 years and 7 months ago

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Hi. I have black mastic from vinyl tiles all over my subfloor. Does anyone know if this should be replaced with a new subfloor? I am thinking about installing a wood floor, or some other type of eco friendly floor, in a kitchen. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

steam_man | 12 years and 7 months ago

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If it’s over 25 years old you should definitely have that tested to see if it contains asbestos before messing around with it too much. I know there are some testing companies that have been mentioned here in the forum, do a search on it. Some of the older mastic was ACM some was not, you never can tell. It’s not the worst form of it so don’t panic. Just some advice…

slopemope | 12 years and 7 months ago

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I’d encapsulate.  Don’t see any risk in encapsulating whether or not the mastic has asbestos.  The risk in getting it up and contaminating the air in the rest of the house just isn’t worth it – what am i missing?