Adhesive Choice

me personally i use Fballs F46 PS on every job.

***** etc say you have to use there adhesive. However if you do have a product failer and need to claim then ***** will point straight away at the adhesive being the 'non recommened' one and void your claim hoping you will run off and not come back even if the adhesive you used has nothing to do with why the flooring failed.

However, we the 'flooring Forum' would back you and support you if this happened. We can supply you (at a cost) a independant witness to inspect the floor and write a full report that can be used in a court of law to identify the problem . If it is the product that is at fault we will prove this in court if need be. If it is the adhesive that has failed then we will prove this also.


But i must say, LVT do not fail or its very rare they do. It is 99% of the time down to installer error, i.e damp

 

Yes that is correct.

My reason for this and i proven this also in test cells i have change temperature in.

LVT's state they should be acclimatised. What to tho? LVT's change there size depending on temperature, not with moister that wood does (hence we aclimatise wood products)

So , a LVT will grow with heat and shrink when cold.

If it is 30c as we are having a hot few days and we acclimatise the lvt (48 hours) to 30c and then install the product it will be acclimatised to 30c. Now lets say the room we just fitted this flooring in is normally 18c for 6 months of the year , we have just installed a product that is acclimatised to 30c! When teh room drops down to 18c the product will shrink by around 0.5 mm. We now have gaps.

so i recommened installing the product colder than the room area. I will keep the product in a cooler area than the room being installed. Normally a garage. Obviously if it 30c for a few days constant then the air temperature will be near this around the rest of the house so you may have to put the job off or keep the flooring in a aircon room. You might think im mad saying aircon, but a aircon unit will cost you £200 - £300 quid. Thats not alot of money if it saves £2000 quids worth of LVT from gapping.


Down side is, if you fit the product too cold it will grow and push the planks up. On F46 for instance this is a easy repair. Simply pull the plank out and trim the end. This is not so easy on F44 or simular proudcts.

 

the science of getting this correct comes down to what equipment you have .

How many of you have temperature gauges to read the subfllor temp and then the air temp v the product temp?

its not hard to take the 3 readings and predict what is going to happen to the product after you install.

The guidelines should really give you 'guidlines' on what temp the product cant be laid at.

 

something like this. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Infrared-Ther..._Measurement_Equipment_ET&hash=item519882add0

 

Karndeans is not F46.

Amtico's is made by FBalls if remember correct, but they change it slightly.

Also Mapei make adhesives for other people also.