Page 4 - 2017-10-CFR Volume 109 - Back To Basics With Vinyl Flooring Installation - Also Polyester And Polyethylene Membranes October 2017

What is the carrier in the adhesive? Water. The wa-
ter based adhesive intended for use to glue the car-
pet down in a double stick installation and expected
to bond two hydrophobic materials together in this
particular case; can’t. So the installation failure is
not the result of not enough adhesive being used but
the fact that the adhesive was never going to bond
these two surfaces together thus the failure of the
installation was inevitable. So what happened to the
adhesive that was used? It went away, literally. The
water in it evaporated, could never complete the
chemical bond and the left over components broke
down. Let me try and make this even clearer. Have
you ever dried off with a towel that contains a small
percentage of polyester blended with cotton? Well,
you feel like you’ve only moved the water around on
your skin. The polyester prevents water absorption
so you don’t get a nice, soft, cottony feel from the
towel and you don’t get very dry. Whoever thought
this was a good idea is an idiot.

Fortunately, because the double stick installation fail-
ure is catastrophic, the carpet will come cleanly off
the cushion with the polyethylene membrane. The
carpet was
not compro-
mised at all
so it can be
used again.
A new
cushion
that is
meant for
double stick
installa-
tions, such
as a Tred-
Mor product
and actually
specified by
the carpet
manufactur-
er can then
be used,
the right
type of high solids adhesive employed and the entire
installation and carpet can be saved.

The double stick installation failure was not the result
of an installation activity compromise but the use of a
component which inherently caused the failure. In

4 Commercial Flooring Report October 2017