We put down a sheet 12X9 of linoleum in our kitchen and it went under the new cabinets and baseboard. The flooring depot said no glue was needed. Well now we have bubbles, a great big one and several others. What is the easiest way to fix this problem?
Flooring – How to fix bubbles under linoleum flooring
flooring
Related Solutions
If it's not visible, just got for a manufactured board, e.g. plywood, OSB, etc. For 3cm, you may be looking at two pieces stacked on top of each other. If it's on concrete, install a moisture barrier first. To secure the boards, I'd avoid the temptation to use a Ramset and permanently drive the names into the cement, since the next time the flooring is redone, you can take the opportunity to do it right and pull everything up and go wall to wall. Instead, secure it with a few cut nails. Again, this all assumes that none of this is visible.
(source: jmnails.com)
It could involve the thinset you used. Generally a latex modified thinset will give a stronger bond, especially in a high foot traffic are like the kitchen. If your thinset was not latex modified it's possible that the water degraded the integrity of the bond.
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Best Answer
Most likely you have the new style of fiberglass, vinyl flooring. It has a softer feel than regular inlaid vinyl (slight padding on back) and in some cases can be laid without adhesives. I have been using this type of sheet goods a lot lately. My customers love it.
More directly to your problem. Since you installed cabinets and baseboards on top of the flooring, it has no space to expand into, thus the bubbles. Also, it may have not been rolled well before the cabinets and base were installed. I would never have installed without an adhesive. You cannot use regular flooring adhesive on these types of fiberglass flooring. If an adhesive is used, it must be the new non-setting type. This adhesive is kind of like the glue on a post-it note. It never dries up hard and allows the flooring to be peeled up years from now. It must be applied very thinly across the entire field, never just around the perimeter. The flooring must then be rolled with at lest a 75 to 100 pound roller. We usually go back an hour after the initial rolling and give it a second roll.
In your case, I'd remove the baseboards, roll the flooring up against the cabinets, apply the proper adhesive and let the flooring back down. Roll it from the cabinets out to the edges, so the adhesive does not pool up. If you are brave, you could cut the flooring along the edge of the cabinets, take it out of the room then apply adhesive and reinstall the floor.
I should note, depending on what you have under your new flooring, you may have to apply an ultra thin coat of embossing leveler to assure proper bonding of the glue to the existing floor.