Page 3 - 2019-01-CFR Volume 124 - Truth or Consequences - Words Don't Make It So - January 2019

alternative test was used.
How about the wave of “new” adhesives said to be a
prevention for moisture vapor emission and flooring
installation failures? These adhesives may them-
selves be resistant to moisture and alkalinity but they
can still be overwhelmed by moisture with the result
being an installation failure. The warranty on them
does not cover such a failure. If moisture is severe it
can overwhelm epoxy and urethane. It does the
same thing with waterproof clothing. If the waterproof
clothing gets wet enough, long enough, you will too.
Waterproof clothing has to breathe so there are tiny
holes to wick sweat away from your body. Water
won’t go through them but the moisture vapor you
sweat will. Do you see the physics here and why
nothing is truly waterproof? It is near impossible to
eradicate moisture issues in concrete. Pinching pen-
nies and then suffering a failure. Short cutting to val-
ue engineer and then experiencing a failure. Speci-
fying a product in a situation that is destined to fail
that no one recognized is an accident waiting to hap-
pen. Repeatedly we see this on more and more cas-
es where the flooring is failing. A jute backed product
on a slab that emits moisture vapor causes the floor-
ing to fail. Jute shouldn’t be anywhere near a con-
crete slab as it will draw in any moisture from the
concrete and concrete always has moisture, it is nev-
er completely dry.

Jute backed hard surface flooring failure

Here’s one you may not have encountered that we
got a call on recently. The flooring contractor told a
GC on a new building project that he wouldn’t install
the flooring because they were using propane heat-
ers. The GC asked why can’t I use propane to heat
the new construction space? The issue with propane

3 Commercial Flooring Report January 2019