Page 1 - 2017-05-CFR Volume 104 FloorSafe - The Future of Floors and Building Related Illness - May 2017
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Volume 104—May 2017




















       Moisture in substrates causes upwards of a billion dollars in flooring
       failures yearly and it isn’t going away anytime soon.  As a matter of
       fact the situation is actually getting worse and will continue to do so.
       As a result many manufacturers have designed, engineered and built
       flooring materials that can be installed without adhesive – ―floating‖
       flooring installation systems.  These systems eliminate the need for a
       separate adhesive and take the failure or compromise of adhesive
       by moisture and alkalinity out of the equation but the moisture still
       exists despite being taken out of play to foil the adhesive. In fact, in
       many cases we’ve made the situation worse.  With the moisture still
       active beneath the flooring material which is now acting as a topical      Hydrostatic Pressure
       moisture retarder the perfect culture for breeding mold and mildew
       now exists.


       There are two types of moisture in a substrate; First, moisture of convenience which comes from the
       concrete itself. New concrete on which flooring is installed is more and more often not cured and light-
       weight concrete in particular which is highly hydrated and second, ground moisture which comes from
       beneath a concrete slab. Furthermore, due to fast track construction and accelerated completion sched-
       ules the likelihood of the concrete and the space being ready for installation is faint.  There is also no
       system for mitigating moisture in concrete that is             100% effective despite what anyone says.
       And adhesives making claims to stop moisture                   don’t.  If you believe you can stop moisture
       completely then you also believe in the tooth fairy.           Two things you don’t stop in any building are
       moisture in vapor form and air. If there’s even one            small pin hole they’ll find it and spread from
       there.  And moisture when it exists can overwhelm any system meant to stop it by going over it, under
       it, around it or through it.  Often times the result is even worse than having done nothing at all. So
       where are we going with this?




      1                                            Commercial Flooring Report                                 May 2017
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