Age is the biggest clue — vinyl tile and the black mastic under it commonly contained asbestos from the 1950s through the 1970s. The only way to know for certain is testing a sample; we won't grind or aggressively demo suspect material until it's been tested.

If your home was built before roughly 1980 and has original vinyl tile or black mastic, we'd strongly recommend testing before any DIY removal — intact material is low-risk, but sanding, grinding, or aggressive scraping can release fibers into the air. For everything else, professional removal isn't strictly required, but it does avoid substrate damage that ends up costing more to fix later.

It depends on the home. Sometimes it's bare slab, sometimes there's an old mortar bed from a prior tile job that has to be ground down, and in older homes it's occasionally original terrazzo that was tiled over rather than removed — which changes the whole plan if that's what we find.

The industry-standard method is in-situ relative-humidity probe testing (ASTM F2170), which measures moisture deep inside the slab rather than just at the surface — probes are set into the concrete and given time to equilibrate before an accurate reading is taken.

Most cracks can be repaired with epoxy or polyurethane injection to stabilize them before new flooring goes over the top. Full slab replacement is rarely necessary — it's typically reserved for significant structural issues, not standard shrinkage or settling cracks.

It's a pourable cement-based compound that flows to correct low spots and bring an out-of-tolerance slab within the flatness range new flooring requires. Skipping it on an uneven slab is one of the most common causes of hollow-sounding tile or failed vinyl plank seams down the road.

It depends heavily on what's being removed — pulling up carpet is inexpensive, while demoing a thick-set tile mortar bed or handling asbestos-era vinyl and mastic costs meaningfully more due to the labor, equipment, and in some cases testing/abatement involved.

For a straightforward removal and minor leveling, it can be a matter of days. If asbestos testing, abatement, significant crack repair, or moisture mitigation is needed, the timeline extends — we'll give you a realistic sequence once we've seen what's actually under the existing floor.