I've seen where building has been vacant and not climate controlled for a number of years. It seemed to shrink and curl. I could see if you were to introduce a stripper, it would get under the edges and compromise the adhesive...
Thanks for your feedback.Too much of some kind of liquid in the refinishing process.
I see it all the time in schools where janitors just put too much liquid on the floors.
Pry individual tiles up & replace.
Definitely stripper and water.Thanks for your feedback.
By liquid do you mean stripper/water? Or would you include floor polish?
The only comment I would have on that would be that we followed the same process with all 3 properties.
You'd be surprised. Every 5-10 years we get a TON of rain like nonstop for 4-6 weeks. It hasn't happened in a very long time. But out here the soil is so hard from the extreme desert conditions that the water goes horizontally under the slab and finds problems no one knew were there. I've seen incredible DISASTERS that I thought were complete replacements. Many weeks passed and I came back to check and the tiles were laying back flat just like when I laid them.Does it have black cutback adhesive ? There is no fix. If not asbestos adhesive remove, grind adhesive residue , vacuum real well and reapply. If it is black adhesive removing tile without removing adhesive residue will fail due to incompatible adhesives, or skim with Ardex featherfinish then proceed.
It's simply not bonded , whether it be from adhesive, floor prep, or alkaline floor stripper breaking adhesive down, it's not going to re-stick like a pressure sensitive adhesive would.
Yes, the tiles have swollen thus curling the seams off the slab. But the glue will also be soaked and weakened from saturation. Eventually, being a porous material the moisture CAN dry out. This happens where there is no continuous source of moisture like our bone dry desert conditions. So in other words that moisture, to the extent it has caused a failure of the VCT system is emitted through the slab, through the VCT into the air where it eventually dissipates and is no longer a problem. So long as the moisture is passing through some problems will still be evident. We've had so little rain in the past 2-3 years it's as dry as it can get under there.What makes VCT go up in the air instead of down? I challenge anyone reading this to take a piece of VCT, put it on their coffee table and try to make it curl up without using their hands.
There's glue under there but when it gets when it loosens up the bond and the constant moisture vapor emmission causes curling at the seams.
Pretty astute observation, but vapor emission doesn't cause it so much as the nature of VCT causes it. VCT isn't an impervious product. It can and will absorb water. And when it does...