Making it easy to remove the lumps in vinyl flooring
Q: The floor in my fifthfloor condo has streak marks. I thought they were from a not-too-clean mop, but after using many floor-cleaning products with no improvement, I looked elsewhere. The housekeeping manager says that the marks are from the flooring being installed on concrete without the proper base and that it is not fixable. The product is Karndean Knight plank, in the color called “KP70 Bray Oak.”
When I bought the unit, I was told the flooring had been installed about three years ago. I had the same material installed in a second bedroom, by Foxwell in Annapolis, Md., but I don’t know who did the initial installation. I tried living with the problem, because everyone says it isn’t too noticeable, but it screams at me every day.
Can you offer any help? A: The planks you have are in a flooring category known as “luxury vinyl,” which comes in plank and tile styles, often with designs that closely mimic wood or stone. Some planks have interlocking edges, while others, including yours, are designed to be glued directly to a subfloor.
As with any manufactured product, imperfections can occur. But that’s almost certainly not what caused the lumps in your floor, said John Jarvis, technical services manager for the manufacturer, Karndean Designflooring (888-266-4343; karndean. com). He noted that the streaks run across numerous planks and match up perfectly from plank to plank. Installers stagger the ends of planks, so it would have taken some amazing puzzle work to install factory-damaged pieces to create the look that bugs you.
Another common problem that results in lumpy vinyl is also probably not the reason for your issue. When vinyl flooring is glued to concrete that contains too much moisture, the moisture can break down the adhesive unless a waterproof membrane is installed first. But concrete that’s too moist typically is either very new or is directly on soil, such as with a basement floor or a slab foundation. You’re on the fifth floor. And if moisture were the issue, you would see edges of flooring curling up and random bulges in the floor, not uniform streaks.
Jarvis, as well as two people who work at the company you hired to install the planks in your second bedroom, all looked at the picture and said they are fairly certain the culprit is trowel marks under the planks. Because vinyl flooring is slightly flexible, any irregularities underneath eventually appear through the top surface.
What caused the trowel marks? That’s impossible to say without pulling up at least a few planks. The bulges could be remnants of adhesive used to hold down an earlier glued-on floor covering. Or the installers might have troweled on a floor-leveling compound but failed to smooth it. Or, most likely, Jarvis said, they chose an adhesive that wasn’t wellmatched to the pace of the installation or skipped what’s supposed to be the final step: going over the floor with a 100-pound roller to press each plank securely into the adhesive.
For gluing down planks, Karndean offers installers three categories of adhesive: one designed to be applied with a notched trowel, one designed to be spread with a roller on a pole and one that’s sprayed on. Jarvis said many installers choose trowel-applied adhesive, because that’s what they’re used to. It was basically the only option until about a decade ago, and it allows installers to feel and fix any irregularities before the planks go on. Installers apply the other adhesives while standing up, so bumps or divots are more likely to go unnoticed.
But installers who choose trowel-applied adhesive have to work quickly, because it starts to skin over in only two hours, Jarvis said. If the installer doesn’t position the planks and go over them with the roller within that window, the adhesive gets so stiff that it can’t be squished into a uniform layer, even with the heavy roller. So ridges can remain where passes of the trowel overlapped.
It won’t help you, but there’s a lesson in this for homeowners who opt to install vinyl planks or tiles themselves: Choose a more forgiving adhesive. The spray adhesive that Karndean recommends has a fourhour working window, and the roller-applied adhesive has an eight-hour window. These, too, require installers to go over the floor with the roller to ensure the flooring is firmly embedded.
So what is the solution for you? You might want to start by calling Foxwell Floor Covering in Annapolis (410-224-7010; foxwellfloors.com), the company that installed the planks in your bedroom. Gail Jenkins and Steve Harden, who both work there in sales, said their company has installed thousands of square feet of Karndean planks. Foxwell carries other brands, but Karndean is “by far the best that’s out there,” Jenkins said. Harden also praised the product. “I put it in my mother’s house, in my girlfriend’s house,” he said. Both said Karndean offers excellent warranties. But because your problem is clearly the result of improper installation, that won’t help you.
Harden said they would “work with you” to pull up a few planks to determine the problem and recommend a solution that would minimize how big an area needs to be redone and how much mess it would cause in your home. If you don’t have leftover planks, make sure you can get matching ones beforehand. In general, Foxwell would charge about $11 a square foot to remove and replace planks like yours. If you have enough leftover planks, you would save several dollars per square foot.