Cleaning AMTICO flooring

[SeanNMS]

Good Afternoon All,

I have a cosmetic store/beauty salon that is using AMTICO laminate wood flooring. They have been having issues with the flooring 'popping' up throughout the store. One of my contractors insists that this is because the cleaner the store is using "Hillyard Arsenal 9 Heavy Duty Flooring Cleaner", which contains Dimethyl Ether, which he saying when mixed with the Polyurethane in the adhesive will eat the adhesive and cause the floor to pop up. Mind you there is no real subfloor or moisture barrier.

Now I have a store with inadequate flooring, a corporate office that is defending the work the original GC did, a supplier who is standing by his cleaner and a contractor that is insisting he is right. I believe my contractor when he says it is the cleaner, it makes sense that such a strong flooring would eat a weak AMTICO adhesive with no moisture barrier. However, I have to be sure before I battle the corporate office of this cosmetic store over it.

Does ANYBODY have any experience with this type of issue? Any help will greatly be appreciated.

Thank you.

Sean R.

 

[crazydaze]

Firstly, Amtico is a Luxury Vinyl Tile flooring, it's not a laminate floor, they are two completely different products, that have completely different cleaning and maintenance regimes etc.

Have you contacted Amtico direct yet? https://www.amtico.com/about-us/contact-us They will be able to give you pretty much the comprehensive answer regarding the cleaning fluid, Amtico are stipulators for using the right product and nothing else. There are a few other possibilities as to why the floor may be having issues, the adhesive needs to be 100% correct, and the subfloor is critical in the performance of the product, it must not have excessive residual moisture in the subfloor, it then needs to be prepared correctly with the appropriate subfloor leveling methods etc.

I'd start with Amtico re: the cleaning fluid, and see what they say, but there are checks that can be made on other aspects of the installation that may point to other issues or contributing factors. Let us know how you get on.