Page 4 - 2018-08-CFR Volume 119 - How Can You See What You Can’t See - The Luxury Vinyl Tile And Plank Dilemma

Adhesive is not a magic material and it doesn’t solve August 2018
flooring material problems. Adhesive won’t stop in-
dentation of vinyl flooring, keep flooring flat if it has an
inherent stress in it and adhesive won’t defy physics.
Adhesive does not correct defects in the flooring ma-
terial. If a vinyl plank lifts, domes, cups, curls or dis-
torts in some other way the adhesive will not stop it,
so let’s stop blaming the adhesive for physical chang-
es in the product.
Here comes the sun. Sun can affect flooring material
unquestionably and even the adhesive. It will burn
the surface of vinyl flooring products in front of win-
dows where the intensity of it is focused or magnified.
It can affect the adhesive holding the flooring material
to the substrate. The sun will also fade everything
and anything. What the sun shouldn’t do is be used
as an excuse when a vinyl plank or tile floor distorts
or lifts in any way from the substrate. If vinyl plank or
tile can’t be used in areas where the sun shines on
the floor, which is everywhere, then it has no busi-
ness being used as flooring. This comes under a
whole different category of legalities where these
products are not merchantable for service or fit for the
intended purpose of use if they will not perform up to
the normal standards and practices flooring should
comply with. So if you tell me a product can’t be
used on the floor where the sun shines on it every
day I’m going to tell you that you shouldn’t be selling
it because it fails to live up to the standard flooring is
supposed to. You can’t sell flooring if it won’t comply
with how and where it’s going to be used. Someone
with half a brain is going to figure out that they’re be-
ing duped and file a class action suit against anyone
who uses this excuse.
Recycled Content in LVT/LVP is a great green story
until the flooring fails and has to be replaced at which
point green goes out the window. The problem with
recycled content in any flooring material is controlling
the recycled content. If from the manufacturing pro-
cess and put back into the flooring product there’s
content control. If sourced from wherever it may
come from there’s no way to know exactly what
you’re getting and how it will react with the flooring
material. The results usually aren’t good. Most of
you will recall the epidemic of curling carpet tiles in
the not so distant past when recycled content in the
backings caused a fiasco on the floor. When the
majority of LVT/LVP comes from the other side of the
world where there are multitudes of manufacturers
making the product with little if any oversight by the
“manufacturers’” they’re making it for, you have no
idea what’s in the flooring and therefore no idea how
the flooring will act or react when installed.

4 Commercial Flooring Report