Should i buy a house that has asbestos tile flooring in the basement?
Depends entirely on the ask price of the house and how much area you are talking about. Best bet is to assume that you will cover the tile with a new floor rather than clean it up. Figure out how much it’ll cost to cover it up. Then factor that amount into your offer. If the tiles are already deteriorating you should get a guy in to do an air test (costs about $300). It’s a small air pump with a sample filter on the intake. He runs it for 3 hours and then sends the sample filter to the lab. They count the number of asbestos fibers that they find on the filter. This will tell you whether you have a problem or not. If there’s little to no damage to the floor already then odds are very slim that you have a problem. If it turns out that there is already contamination in the basement, you’ll have to do a cleanup. This can be expensive. The guy who does the test can give you a better idea of what that cost would be. I went through this already and my air test passed. It’s not so bad.
