INSTALLATION Don’t oversell and don’t under-test
Waterproof floors I was planning a writing evening after work and thinking about my column that would address some issues related to concrete moisture concerns in floor coverings. Coincidentally, I started my day on a conference call with several people from my company. As we were reviewing a variety of flooring products in our line, one of my more experienced colleagues had a few choice words about the category of so-called waterproof flooring that really struck a chord with me. With the growing popularity of a resilient floating floors such as loose lay, click LVT, WPC and so on, there is more and more marketing that has the word waterproof right up front. You’d sometimes think this Christopher is a new category called waterproof Capobianco flooring that didn’t exist before. This gives the impression that somehow vinyl floors were not waterproof before, which of course is not true. Claims are being made that these floors can be installed in wet areas because the material will never swell, and so on. But what if? These claims can give the impression that somehow if the floor gets flooded, there is no problem. That’s certainly not true, because if a flood were to occur, the entire floor would have to be removed so that the substrate and the flooring material could be allowed to dry out; not to mention the walls if you had a bad flood. Again, technically the material is waterproof but it’s more complex than that. My colleague and I are not the only ones concerned about these products being over-sold. I prefer, when I describe these products, to talk more about the other advantages such as acoustic benefits, simpler installation, smoother transitions to adjacent floor coverings such as carpet tile, and oh, yes – it’s also waterproof so if you have a flood, theoretically you can take it all up, dry it out and put it back down again. That covers a little about the whole of “waterproof” when it comes to moisture from above. What about
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from below? The issue of concrete moisture issues never goes away, and more frequently today, the conversation turns to some kind of floating floor as a solution. I work with a lot of rubber flooring for fitness applications and am often asked about the interlocking “puzzle” tile as an option for damp concrete. Along the same lines, products like vinyl and WPC are being sold as somehow immune from concrete moisture issues. The assumption is that that damp concrete under floating floors is okay because there is no adhesive. That’s the issue, right? Well, in a lot of cases it is, but making that assumption can also get you in trouble. So, no glue, no moisture testing, right? Wrong. Read the manufacturer’s documents and you’ll find requirements for moisture testing. Chances are that the limits are generally higher than glue-down resilient, but there still are limits. I had a good example of this on a commercial project over new concrete when a 5 mm thick click-vinyl plank installation was curling badly. When the planks were lifted, the concrete was visibly damp, and the moisture readings were on the high side. It was assumed before the floor was installed that this was not an issue, so no testing was done. However, the manufacturer did in fact have a published moisture limit. Despite the material being “waterproof,” it can be affected by such issues related to moisture as elevated pH and alkalinity that often come as moisture emits from concrete slabs. My biggest concern about this whole issue is trapped moisture between the substrate and the floor covering. Whether your subfloor is wood or concrete, whether it’s water from the top or moisture from below, moisture under the floor covering creates such potential problems as mould and bacterial growth. Even if the flooring itself is not affected, these are big issues, and you can bet the floor covering dealer and installer will get called back to deal with them. For thesee reasons, I tend to be cautious about claiming a floor is waterproof or moisture-resistant. You can certainly install a vapour retarder sheet or underlayment under a lot of floors that will protect the floor covering, if that’s recommended by the manufacturer. I still worry about moisture under the sheet, but at least the flooring itself is protected. So, all that said, what’s the installer to do? For starters, read the installation guides and the warranties for these products. You can bet there is language about moisture test-