Too Much Glue Hardwood To Concrete

Clean up any glue as you go.

Too much glue hardwood to concrete.

The installation of hardwood floors by the glue down method is used predominately on concrete slabs. They use too much adhesive thinking that more is better and the panels will be more secure this way. Wood adhesives recommended today are much more environmentally friendly than in the past but they cost more. When glue is used in conjunction with screws and nails the bond is strong enough to resist natural movement of the wood.

A glue down installation requires premium wood adhesives be properly troweled over the concrete slab and the engineered wood planks laid onto the adhesive and locked together at their tongue and groove joints. Spread only enough glue for an hour s work at least until you re more comfortable with the process. Glue forms the initial bond but without screws and nails the natural expansion and contraction of the wood can break or weaken the glue. Applications are more prominent with residential construction in sunbelt areas commercial locations and high rise dwellings.

Glue down hardwood floors on concrete. Use the trowel to get adhesive all over the starting corner. Engineered hardwood is perfectly suited to do the job and there is no reason to glue down solid hardwood. Let me also go on record with 17 years experience installing hardwood flooring this is a bad idea.

Gluing down solid wood flooring to concretethis is a question that i have started to receive more and more. Apply it proportionally and manage your adhesive so that you have enough for the entire room. We have scraped and vacuumed and the concrete seems ready for the new glue for our subfloor sound deadening mat to which the 5 8 x 5 engineered oak floor will be glued. You don t want the adhesive drying before you can get to that area.

Photos by charles bickford except where noted. They also require. Once the glue dries it s much harder to remove. Only spread the adhesive over small areas ahead of you at any given time.

Installing engineered hardwood flooring over concrete too tight against a stationary object will not allow room for normal expansion and may cause a failure. This is a common mistake with newcomers to the do it yourself hardwood flooring field. Clean up as you go. Concrete has a dull black finish that i think is from the previous glue that was used 1966 and has some remnant dust from the homosote.

But the catch is that the solid wood flooring we have that can be glued over concrete and warranted is 5 16 and 7 16 solid hardwood not 3 4 solid hardwood and can be only on on grade and suspended concrete. Ken fisher is a flooring contractor in bonita springs fla.