Old chipboard tiles as subfloor

[Pidneyhill]

Has anyone else come across these? The property is approx 200 years old and i believe was 2 tiny dwellings knocked together. Extended in the 1970s.
Liftrd the carpet in the old front part to explore damp issues and there are 9 inch square tiles stuck down with bitumen.
Looks like some sort of compressed wood.
Any clues would be appreciated thank you.

 

[Zebra]

Could be asbestos. Be careful, maybe chip a bit off for analysis.
Edit: I had asbestos floor tiles here, which is what makes me think of it. But asbestos needn't necessarily cause all-out panic. There are different types with different risks. Here I had a register plate in the fireplace that was "the bad stuff" and I had to get a contractor to remove, and other bits here and there. The floor tiles I could remove and bag up myself with PPE, but could not legally dispose of myself, so got the contractor to take away. The initial analysis of how risky each type was had to be done in a laboratory - I was able to chip a bit off from each area and send it to them in a jiffy bag. You can always wet asbestos if you need to handle it, since the risk is from the dust.

 

[paulc]

Asbestos was also added to bitumastic adhesives. So even if the tiles don't contain any, the glue underneath might.

 

[LadyArowana]

Re the asbestos issue, if you aren’t comfortable garbing up in PPE and taking samples for testing there are reputable companies which will do it. We went with that approach and once we had the report had them return to remove some. The roof tiles which were of the ‘ok to leave as long as not being disturbed’ sort were taken down and bagged by our roofers and then collected for disposal along with everything else when the asbestos specialist returned to remove other things.