Hi, I just had 12 x 12" vinyl floor tiles put down in my basement concrete floor after hurricane sandy. 2 Days after I noticed that the vinyl tiles are not laying flat, the edges are not flush, level, flat. He did not put a sealer or finish over them either.
What do we need to do besides calling the contractor back?

quote:

Originally posted by LAHDI:

What do we need to do besides calling the contractor back?

That's pretty much it - you need to call him back. Did they install a primer / sealer on the concrete first? All vinyl tiles need a primer/sealer applied if installed on concrete - if they skipped that then your installer screwed up. It's also possible that the concrete was too moist at install. If your house got flooded during Sandy then a good chance that the porous concrete is still too wet to allow for tile installation.

Finally, a lot depends on what type of tile was installed. If you had peel and press stick on tiles installed then you simply got what you paid for. P&P tiles are designed for easy install by DIYers. While they can work they are not so good in low adhesive situations - like being installed on concrete. I can't imagine a pro installer putting P&P tiles on concrete unless you insisted that this is what you wanted.

If you had VCT tiles installed then there should be a troweled-on adhesive. This too is subjective to dampness trapped inside the concrete slab.

Your first step is definitely going to be getting the installers back in to see what happened ans what's the fix. Unless you had some fly-by-night installer, they should cover a 2 day fail under warranty.

Thank you Jaybee, No we did not use the peel and press vinyl tile. The contractor did spread primer / sealer on the concrete first, let it sit & then he did trowel adhesive to the
back of each 12 x 12 vinyl tile with adhesive. How ever the tiles are still not sticking. I walked the whole floor using a clean soft paint roller to flatten them and the VCT are still not totally adhering to the concrete. Also the contractor did not apply sealer or floor finish over the vct, could that be part of the issue?

The finish on the top surface of the VCT has nothing to do with it's adhesion so that's not the problem.

I'm going to go with two things, both related: As mentioned in the post above, if there is too much moisture trapped within the concrete it could slow down the cure time of the adhesive. Even with a primer/sealer on the concrete this could happen, but it is less likely.

The other thing is that the adhesive for VCT takes a long time to fully cure - weeks. Your fix may be as simple as re-rolling with a weighted floor roller several times over the next week or so. Now, if they used too much adhesive then this will take even longer but even with the correct amount and thickness, it could take a while to really stick. BTW, if there is too much adhesive then it will squeeze out from the cracks as you roll the floor.

As I said above, since this is a two day old floor, just call the installer and tell them you are having problems.