Asbestos floor tile is not generally brittle to a large degree and asbestos is only dangerous if you inhale it into lungs. I would just get a n95 dust mask pick up the lose tiles and burying them in the yard as it is a mineral and not subject to enviornmental problems and quite often buried in landfills around here. Since its a basement I assume it is a concrete floor underneath and the adhesive is holding the tile firmly in place go ahead puts some floor patch down to cover the area tiles are missing I am not familar with the flooring you are putting down but most plank flooring I am familar with do not use adhesive or fasteners check your manufactures recomendation. Good Luck Eddie

OK then! :) My stupid floors are kind of uneven, though. Does that make a difference for the engineered hardwood? I should add that although we've never had any problems, the previous HO (original HO) did install a basement waterproofing system. It could certainly have been paranoia on her part, and I've never known our sump pump to run in almost three years, but I thought I'd put that out there. Many basements in my area DO have flooding issues, which is why I am somewhat paranoid. The rest of my house is hardwood though, and I vastly prefer that. I have always hated carpet. If you know of any good deals on EH, I'd be very interested in at least pricing it out. Is it something I can install myself?

My first thought is to use an old trick to remove the tiles; flood the floor with water which often breaks the bond of the old tiles. It will take a while for the water to do its job. How long ? I dunno. BUt I have de-tiled damp slabs where the 9 or 12 inch tiles lift right off the floor in whole pieces as fast as you can pick them up. It doesn't hurt to try. You can also use ceramic tiles over them. Mapei's Eco-primgrip applied over the existing floor before tiling. Do remove any loose tiles or tile parts first.

Just because vinyl asbestos rules are exposed to water is not a cause for concern. However, over time, it could cause some of the tiles to become loose. There are floor leveling products you can trowel over the floor that will also allow you to tile on top of them. I don't know whether repeated exposure to water would be a problem. If you wanted to put some type of concrete slab on top you could, but it would need to be several inches thick and preferably have reinforcing mesh. If it we're me, I'd have a foundation waterproofing company address the basic problem before spending on anything else.