Vinyl Flooring Over Concrete Moisture

Concrete slabs and floors can be excellent subfloor surfaces for tile and other floor coverings but too much moisture in the concrete can cause problems with flooring installations.

Vinyl flooring over concrete moisture.

If your concrete slab is prone to moisture consider this vinyl type. Armstrong flooring recommends the maximum moisture vapor emission for floating vinyl floors to be no more than 5 pounds per 1 000 square feet over a 24 hour period. A vinyl sheet may be forgiving if your concrete slab isn t perfectly even. A concrete floor seems like the perfect base for a vinyl floor installation.

Once the slab is poured the excess moisture must leave the slab in order to strengthen the concrete bond. This vinyl type comes in a single sheet that is installed over the concrete floor. With plywood subfloor that s totally enough. If you ve noticed moisture appearing on the concrete in your basement or have some bare concrete in your home you d like to cover easily and cheaply vinyl plank flooring could be the thing you are looking for.

Water damage problems may not be as common with sheet vinyl flooring as some other flooring products but they do happen. In other words simple moisture can t affect the lv but when it comes. However allowing excess moisture to leave the slab after it s poured is crucial to a successful flooring installation. A concrete floor with a too high moisture content can wreak havoc on a vinyl floor.

Therefore it s advisable to have a floor tested for moisture content prior to installing flooring or moisture barriers. Water damaged vinyl flooring problems are more common over concrete than with vinyl floors installed over wood substrates. Over wood the problem is usually a water leak flooding or the underlayment was too wet when installed. Moisture weakens glue bonds and causes the edges to lift.

There are a number of vinyl plank flooring options. The flooring associate at the home depot canada suggested using vapour barrier with tuck tape to seal the concrete. However when lv is installed over concrete there is a possibility that moisture under the floor whether it seeps down from above or is emitted from the slab can react with chemicals in the concrete to create high levels of alkali which can degrade the vinyl. Vinyl flooring can either be glued to the subfloor or it can float on top of it and either way moisture underneath it causes problems.

What s more installing them is something you can easily do on your own. For glue together and glue down floors it s between 8 and 12 pounds so be sure to check the moisture requirements for the product you purchase. A moisture barrier may or may not be needed to insure good adhesion of your vinyl floor so do your homework to avoid problems later on down the road. Moisture will get through so even if you don t add an additional underlay you do need to seal the concrete.