So often we hear of problems with carpet coming off the floor on which it has been glued. When the carpet comes loose it creates bubbles, buckles and wrinkles. The primary cause of this problem is the lack of adequate adhesive application, going into the adhesive after it has set up and in some cases overzealous wet cleaning which can break the bond of the adhesive. What you don’t hear about as much is the marvelous adhesives which stick the carpet, vinyl, tile or other flooring products to the substrate tighter than two coats of paint. In fact in some cases it is near impossible to get the carpet off the floor because of the tenacity of the adhesive.

There are a multitude of new adhesive products on the market from companies such as Advanced Adhesive Technologies, Mapei, Para-Chem, Taylor and others who manufacture premium grade adhesives for a multitude of uses and products. When the correct adhesive is chosen, and in my opinion it should always be a premium grade adhesive, properly applied, under the right conditions, with lack of compromising conditions, there shouldn’t be any failure. That is, whatever you stuck down should stay down. Even in cases of marginal adhesive application, with an aggressive adhesive, the flooring material should stay in place.

We came through a period of time not too many years ago when the issue of VOC’s and odors were of great concern. Many of the “new” adhesive formulations compounded to minimize or eliminate VOC’s and odors actually caused failures of adhesion on the floor. Some formulations had large amounts of water which reacted with the carpet and the substrate. This can still be a problem today if you use cheap adhesives with high filler loads and high water content. Some of the reformulated adhesives actually reacted with the carpet backings and caused failures, a story few people heard about. A lot of people ate a whole lot of carpet yardage over this problem “which didn’t exist.” We’ve come along way in the last few years with adhesives. Many adhesive manufacturers have become expert in formulating new compounding that works better than the older solvent laden adhesives. This is not to say that there still aren’t some marginal products out there, especially relative to some seam sealers made to be used with direct glue down carpet installations. The responsible dealer and installer should test and evaluate the adhesives they plan on using prior to committing to them. The dealer should be aware of the adhesives his installer is using especially with commercial carpet direct glued down applications. This will prevent any surprises. The installer should experiment with different types of adhesives and seam sealers to determine which one works best.

A new category of adhesives, those which are sprayed on, are taking the commercial installation market by storm. Actually this is not a new system but one that has found new favor in the contract sector of the installation market. The adhesives themselves though are new and different. They have different properties than troweled on adhesives and have to be understood to be used properly. They are easier to apply, faster when the system is learned and much less taxing on the installer physically. These adhesives may seem “flimsy” when first applied but once they set up it may take a bulldozer to pry the installed carpet off the floor.

You also have to be concerned with the seaming tape being used on stretch in installations. There are also a multitude of them made by a variety of manufacturers, some of whom I’ve previously mentioned. Seaming tapes can minimize or prevent seam peaking, telegraphing of the tape through the seam and extraordinarily high integrity of the seam. Since there are so many seaming tapes, each with a different purpose, it should be understood that one seaming tape will not work in all situations or with all carpet products. Like tools in a tool box the installer must be aware of what tape will work with any particular carpet to achieve the strongest seam without compromising the carpet appearance at the seam. The dealer should also be aware of what tapes will work with any particular carpet. If there’s a problem with a carpet installation, or any other floorcovering product for that matter, the consumer or end user is going to come back to the salesperson or the dealer. These people must have answers to questions of concern, it’s part of their job if their going to sell the product. If they don’t have answers they have to know where to get them and how to properly convey the information while resolving the issue.

The floorcovering business is a team effort. Like a football team, everyone has a job to do. Each member of the team has to know something about how each individuals position affects them. If one guy slacks off all the team members are affected. The same holds true with the flooring dealership. Include everyone, work as a team and watch how much more successful you’ll be. Most likely your competition won’t be doing this, so you’ll have an advantage and you’ll be more profitable.