Hardwood Floors August/September 2019

AT THE SITE

GLUE Gives thePrimaryAssist In recent years, there has been a growing focus on using flooring adhesives to assist with nail-down or stapled installations of wood flooring. Known as a glue-assist installation, this approach utilizes glue as an aid in fastening wide

As the trend towardmanufacturingwiderwoodplanks progresses, using a nail-down-only approachbecomes increasingly challenging.Wider solidwood andengineeredplanks, especially those5” andwider, placed inunfavorable environments can result inunwantedmovement in thewood, instability, cupping, crowning, andnoise. Evenwhen following theproper nail scheduleor recommended spacing, stability inunfavorable environments cannot be guaranteed withwider planks. Itmust benoted thatwithout an industry guideline related to the glue-assist method,many in the industryhave generatedvarying andconflicting instruction. Manywoodflooringmanufacturers opt not toprovide glue-assist guidelines at all. Further contributing topotentially confusingor absent instructions from manufacturers is the fact that glue-assist is not a requirement, but simply anoptional aid for flooring installation. Fortunately, for our industry, theNWFAhas beenassemblingdefinitive glue-assist methods in the InstallationGuidelines updates. BrettMiller, VPof Education andCertification for theNWFA, has stated “thewoodflooring industry couldanticipate the releaseof theupdated InstallationGuidelines by the endof summer 2019.”With theNWFAadding clarity to this previouslymurky installationapproach, thesenewGuidelineswill likelyhelp installers gainclarity andconfidence. Amidst disparateopinions on the ideal implementationof glue-assist, theprevailing viewpoint is that abeadof adhesive shouldbe applied ina serpentineor similar pattern that covers the entire lengthandwidthof eachplank. Somemanufacturers indicate that this pattern should runperpendicular to thedirection inwhich the flooring is being installed, whileothers assert thepattern shouldbe applied ina parallel fashion. A fully troweled layer of adhesive is above andbeyondwhatmost consider a glue- assist tobe. Insteadof traditional pails, therefore, sausage andcartridgedispensed adhesives havebecome increasinglypopular options for glue-assist. Affording greater accuracy andprecisionwhenappliedwithdispensing guns, sausages and cartridges featureminimal waste, easy cleanup, easy transport, andanextended shelf life.Whilemanaging theflooringnailers, injecting adhesives into the equationcanbecome adifficult andmessybalancing act.Whenglue is being utilizedas anassist-method rather than theprimary fastening-methodof the installation, theuseof these lightweight adhesive-dispensingoptions for installers is tremendously important.

planks in particular. The need hasn’t seemed to have been highlighted until recently due to wood planks being manufactured at increasingly wider dimensions, necessitating a supplementary tactic for stability and security in many flooring installations.

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