Armstrong VCT

[findingfloorester]

I got a bunch of Armstrong vinyl composition tiles for next to nothing and want to use them for a semi temporary flooring. I want to be able to rip them up in 3-5 years. Subfloor I have in the area is sanded ply, I am going to fill and sand the joints. I want it to be decently smooth and don't want the tiles shifting around.

Is it possible to roll out poly/or tyvek and staple it nice and flat and glue the tiles to that? It sounds like a crazy idea to me, but when I rip the stuff up I want it to pop up pretty clean and easy. Anybody ever done anything like this, or does it sound like it would look like trash/pop up after a little bit of traffic?

 

[Commercial Floor Rep]

The problem is that you won’t find an adhesive that will work over poly or Tyvek. The glue won’t ever set properly because you’re sandwiching it between two completely non porous surfaces. They do make an actual rolled product for this type of application called Kovara. You use a double face tape in a grid pattern to secure the kovara to the subfloor. The kovara has a mineralized surface that allows glue to bond to it like it was concrete.

This is used a lot for tenant leased spaces like strip malls where the retail tenants aren’t allowed to attach anything permanent to the subfloor. We used to use it a lot in build-a-bear stores so it does hold up and works well.

The drawback to it is that it isn’t a cheap date. I haven’t carried it for a few years now but it was north of $1.50 / sf the last we handled it. I thought I saw that the manufacturer may have come out with a less expensive version here a while back though.

Wish you luck with your project!

 

[Incognito]

https://ca.gcpat.com/en/solutions/products/versashield-sheet-membrane
The stuff described above by CFR looks something like this-----Versashield was this brand name. It was over $1 a foot if I recall correctly.

 

[Incognito]

Here's another one with LVT over Versashield. We were using it as a moisture retarder.

 

[Commercial Floor Rep]

Yep. They were bought by Halex, then Halex also bought Orcon tools and tapes and then a company called GCP bought Halex and sold off the underlayment and tackstrip to Roberts and kept the Versashield line and the Orcon tools. When they did this GCP didn't buy the "long term" product name rights to VersaShield so they rebranded it to Kovara. Although they still have some of the stuff up on their site obviously. But GCP is primarily a company that makes additive for concrete mixes. As a result, they aren't very easy to work with and they really had no motivation to support these lines very well. They are more in tune with concrete guys than flooring people. Although recently they have started to do some things with the Kovara line as the advances in adhesives have made it too high priced of an option for most flooring installations with regard to the slab moisture characteristics. You can get the same Rh coverage with adhesives for less than $1 / sf. I think they realized they were too high priced and started making some variations on the product. They kept trying to market the "ease" of removal as a big selling point, but in most cases it just isn't that important of a feature relative to the moisture characteristics. One thing I'll see is it always amazed me how incredibly stable the product was. You could roll out a roll and the stuff would just lay flat as a pancake with pretty much no memory at all to it.

It's interesting, we never really severed ties with them, but we haven't had a rep from GCP call or even attempt to contact us in over 3 years. Kind of shows that they aren't really in the correct business model to support flooring. It's a shame because the product did work, and we did some nice projects with it. It's almost like they bought the product to suppress it from competing with their admixtures. They also have a "silo" type of approach to products. We had to call one place to order the Kovara(Vershashield) another to order Orcon tools, another to order the carpet seaming tape, and they had a few other products as well. It's all very segregated and the customer service people were just clueless when it came to products. You couldn't "build" an order between products because each segment shipped out of a different location meaning you got killed on freight unless you were moving massive quantities of whatever you were buying. Pretty sad when our company has been in business for 104 years and we can't even get a rep to call us back. But that's the "new norm" for ya.

 

[Commercial Floor Rep]

Sorry @Incognito, I forgot to add, as always, you always did great work. You could use your photo's for their marketing. Everything is laid out correctly and as it should be! Hope you're enjoying being off your knees now.

 

[Incognito]

Sorry @Incognito, I forgot to add, as always, you always did great work. You could use your photo's for their marketing. Everything is laid out correctly and as it should be! Hope you're enjoying being off your knees now.

I really am enjoying not being on my knees or even doing the other GC (labor/carpentry/paint/etc.) stuff i did that last year or so. At my age EVERYTHING hurt pretty much all the time when I was busting ass. Hands were always swollen and sore, elbows, wrists, knees.........

Anyways, we stopped using the Versashield. The product does what it's supposed to do but our customers...........ANY customer ultimately doesn't realize that resilient flooring is contingent on near perfect substrate prep. The stuff we used to prep would fail under the Versashield and the accumulation of moisture and salt is a HEALTH HAZARD totally inappropriate for schools, hospitals, retail and office space------everywhere we install resilient floors. So it's really fine for this poster's application but for the majority of installs we did it was a bad idea. They ALWAYS needed the Koster or comparable epoxy. Cheaping out with the fibrous membrane was kicking the can down the road. REALLY bad idea for long term facility managers and finance directors.

 

[Incognito]

It was SWEET to work with though. One knucklehead kid who just turned out Journeyman used it in a portable classroom over nasty 3/4" tongue and groove ply after demo glue down carpet doing practically no prep thinking the membrane made it superfluous. They made him go replace the install on his own time. They paid me to supervise him on a Saturday for 9 hours OT then the fired him anyway.
I hope he learned his lesson. There was a full day's demo and prep in that classroom and they told him to demo/prep/install VCT with cove base in one day. I guess he gave them what they asked for.
They still on occasion demand installers "GIT 'ER DONE" in a limited time. I doubt they'll ever learn what a bad idea that is. Cant say I never reacted to the pressure. As I aged I really reacted less and less. Once they told me to finish by Friday. Not only did I not finish Friday I worked 9 hours Monday and 10 hours on Tuesday. They never said a word and I would have quit if they said so much as PEEP!

 

[Commercial Floor Rep]

Yeah, I always struggled with it as a fix for moisture emission. It wasn't cheap and every time you replace the floor you have to "pay the piper" again. While a true moisture control system like Koster or Ardex is a once and done application. Expensive, but you're done fixing the same problem over and over again.

 

[findingfloorester]

Thanks, for your responses, been a bit crazy around here with a new baby 3 days ago.

Is this product like a fiberglass mesh with vapor barrier on the bottom? I have a half roll of Typar and Block-it house wrap I might experiment with them, see if a tile will glue to it, Probably just a waste of time. But at $1.50 ft for the Kovara I'd just buy some cheap pop and click vynil, before I go for that.

 

[Incognito]

Thanks, for your responses, been a bit crazy around here with a new baby 3 days ago.

Is this product like a fiberglass mesh with vapor barrier on the bottom? I have a half roll of Typar and Block-it house wrap I might experiment with them, see if a tile will glue to it, Probably just a waste of time. But at $1.50 ft for the Kovara I'd just buy some cheap pop and click vynil, before I go for that.

My advice would be to throw away the VCT and go buy some VERY cheap floating LVT vinyl plank or laminate. You can get those products and install them MUCH cheaper than your expectation to install VCT and demo it out cheap and easy.

Easy yes. Cheap no.

 

[driftinwoods]

I would install them loose laid like carpet tile is sometimes.Glue the perimeter and loose lay the field.
Or loose lay some cheap sheet vinyl.

 

[JPfloor]

How big an area? Commercial or residential space? How much foot traffic for the 3-5 years? Any rolling items like carts or dollies?

There’s really no correct way to install VCT temporarily. Best and cheapest way would be to staple down some Masonite as underlayment and glue the tile to that. If you use short staples it should all come up together fairly easily. Even though it’s temporary don’t skimp on the staples, every six inches or so or you’ll have problems.

Best advice you got so far is a click together floor or loose lay vinyl. No better temporary floor than that… Or maybe just paint the plywood you have now, throw down an area rug and call it a day.