Page 1 - 2018-10-CFR Volume 121 - It's Not Always Moisture - October 2018

Not to scare the daylights out of you but every con-
crete slab you put flooring on has the potential to
compromise the installation. There’s more to be
concerned about than just moisture; a lot more.
Moisture is the issue we hear the most about but
there is a myriad of other compromising conditions
associated with concrete that have the potential to
ruin your day and cause a flooring installation to fail.
You have to know what can hurt you because aside
from moisture, and the alkalinity that comes with it,
which will give you visible indications of a problem, a
lot of the other things won’t be obvious or evident at all until the issue is visibly manifested. You’ll get
the blame and won’t have a clue as to what actually caused the problem. What may be worse is that
what you think you know to resolve the issue may not be effective at all. And to make it even worse
there may be a condition with the concrete that would prevent any flooring from sticking to it.
What’s most disturbing about this is that a flooring
and installation failure may not occur right away and
because it may take time the first one to get the call
about who’s at fault will be the flooring contractor.
Let me say this, concrete is not in the scope of the
flooring contractor or installers expertise. Flooring
people aren’t normally scientists, chemists or engi-
neers who understand the complexities, chemistries
or characteristics of concrete. Every concrete slab
that flooring goes down on is different be it below on
or above grade.

So let’s start with the simple things you should know Concrete Slab Above Grade
about concrete.

All concrete no matter the age always has some moisture in it and will always have moisture in it and
you never want concrete to be completely dry. So never let anyone tell you the concrete is dry. Also,
moisture in concrete is not static, that is, constant, it can and does change regardless of what testing

1 Commercial Flooring Report October 2018