floormagic

A Kenneth J. Frango Company

Natural Cork Parquet Tile- Color: Cleopatra, with matte finish. 12" X 12"

View is from the Playroom into the Family Room

Stripping the carpet.

Floor Preparation for Cork Tile

Anhydrous Calcium Chloride Testing

Preparing the control joint

Time to clean the floor

Unique Floor Preparation

This step will be eliminated.

Preparing the step.

Step area

Remember the electrical outlet?

Fill in the step area

Rough patching and filling is complete.

Patching the step is complete.

Applying the primer.

The field is applied using a stand up roller.

Applying the adhesive

Starting point

Stair step installation

Hugging the line

Maintaining stair step and leading on the line.

Ken Frango setting tile.

Half the field installed

Straight end

Roll the floor

Oak step molding stained to match

Finishing up the cuts on the first side.

The second half starting point

Applying the adhesive to the step riser

Completed step with cork tile

View from back door

View from the step

View of the top of the step.

Stained oak trim to meet ceramic tile

One last pic of the finished product

floormagic

A Kenneth J. Frango Company

Solving flooring problems for the people that make it to the people that use it...and everyone inbetween.

The product specified for this job has the adhesive preapplied to it's back at the factory. It's packed 88 sq. ft. per box in two stacks. Between each row is a layer of wax paper for protection. Packing isn't very sturdy and shipping was by Yellow Freight. Consequently some tiles arrived damaged. Overall about 15 sq. ft. were damaged during shipping. This is the norm rather than the exception. We still could have used part of the damaged tile but we had plenty of tile for this project and the customer had the option to make a claim for damage. Keep this in mind when planning your project.

The flooring is 400 sq. ft. of a 12" X 12" / 3/16" gauge cork tile from Natural Cork. Purchased by the enduser/customer through ifloor.

Floormagic, a Kenneth J. Frango (www.kennethjfrango.com) company, has been contracted to do the installation.

Carpet is to be removed and the tile is to be adhered directly to the concrete substrate. Jim Schnasa, a CFI (www.cfiinstallers.com) certified installer and a member of the

Arizona Licensed Contractors' Group, begins to remove the existing carpet.

The white boxes stacked in the playroom are the tile. Each box contains 88 sq. ft of tile. The product has been on site in controled living conditions for three weeks.

A closer view of the area from the same vantage point. Take note of the floor outlet for future reference. We're unaware of the condition of the concrete slab at this point. Carpet covers a multitude of sins so we're prepared for a worst case scenario.

One of the most important aspects of any flooring installation is that the substrate (the concrete slab in this case) is ready to receive the finished flooring. For that to happen the floor must be clean, dry, smooth and flat to within certain tolerances. This is especially important for natural products like cork.

Jim is removing old gypsum based patching compound from a control joint in the floor. We'll be using superior portland/cementious based patching compounds for our job. They are incompatible with the gypsum based products so the gypsum has to be completely removed. Gypsum patch is often used when the flooring will not be adhered to the substrate. As with the previous stretched in carpet installation.

We tested our concrete slab for moisture vapor emissions using Calcium chloride moisture test kits manufactured by Taylor tools. This is the only ASTM approved MVE (moisture vapor emissions) testing method (ASTM F-1869-98)

The tolerances for our cork floor set forth by the manufacturer was 3 pounds per 1000 square feet per 24 hours. Test results came back at 2.35 pounds per 1000 square feet per 24 hours. Safely within manufacturer's allowable tolerances. That means this slab is dry enough to accept this cork flooring. The customer was happy because she had already purchased the flooring before any testing was done.

If the slab readings were high an additional sealer like Koester would have to be used to bring the floor within tolerance. This is an extra added expense that most consumers do not take in to consideration.

There's always been debate on how this should be done. The control joint is cut into the concrete slab to allow for the expansion and contraction, or movement of the slab itself. What we've done and found to be best, is to fill the top portion of the joint with a flexible polyurethane sealant formulated for concrete. This has excellent adhesive properties and will allow the slab to move normally without causing an undesireable blemish to the finished floor covering.

We've removed all the old patch and we've also under cut all the baseboards around the perimeter of the room. This will allow us to slip the new flooring underneath, maintain the required space for flooring movement and eliminate the need for an additional molding.

We've opted to razor scrape clean the entire floor by hand, using a mist of a water and TSP solution. As opposed to mechanical abrasion using a 17" electric orbital sander. The sander is quicker but wet scraping is much more effecient for dust control.

Also notice the spider cracks in the slab. This is common and will be filled when we get to the patching portion of our preparation work.

The customer will be removing this wet bar in the future. It will have a raised floor in this nook for the children to do homework and study.

There's a unique step down here (the yellow arrow points to the area) that we will be filling in.

This is a 7" drop down split into two steps, 3 1/2" drop each. When we are done they'll be one step down covered with the new cork floor.

It always gets worse before it gets better. The carpeting will be replaced so we're not too concerned about it when it comes to dry dirt. We do vacuum it off and pull it back when we're ready to pour our concrete.

Here's another perspective of the step area and the kind of intensive floor preparation that needs to be done to achieve a flat and smooth surface.

We needed to fill in around the outlet so the floor could get close enough and sit flat. Paying attention to these types of details make for a superior job.

We used Mapei plani patch, a cementious based polymer modified patching compound for all of our rough patching and filling under one inch deep. This dries quick and hard, and is great for this type of basic patching.

We used a rapid setting (www.rapidset.com) cement with a gravel aggregate to fill in the depth of the step. This product dries chemically with out the need for evaporation. Perfect for this project because the more moisture we add to the slab the longer we will have to wait before we can install the finished cork flooring.

This was dry and hard within two hours. The white liquid on top is a latex primer used to aid in bonding additonal layers of patching compound. Notice the light gray area; that is the dry pour. The surrounding dark area is a thin layer patching compound that is not yet dry.

We've completely filled in all the deeper areas with our patching compound. We'll let this dry overnight and then apply two coats of primer in preparation for at least two coats of an Ardex feather finish skim coat. Ardex SDF (self drying formula) is another cementious based patching compound. It has no sand and we use this to provide a very smooth, hard surface for adhereing our finished flooring.

After dry, the step will be ready for a fine finish also.

Once the Ardex skim coating is complete the cork manufacturer's primer is applied using the recommended short nap roller. Jim is using a liberal coat around the perimeter, careful not to get the baseboards slopped up. If I were doing it I'd have to tape everything, or spend time cleaning the baseboards.

Notice also that the starting lines were chalked on the floor using a red chalk line and then coated with a clear acrylic spray so they wouldn't wipe away.

A laser square (SL-24) was used for making accurate perpendicular lines. Being square is very important when laying any type of tile.

The manufacturer recommended, water based contact cement is applied much the same way the primer is. Half the room was applied and will be installed, then the other half.

Four cases of material are opened as we will use cork tile from different boxes attempting to get a good color variation and mixture.

We designated this as our starting point and will start to install the material maintaining a stair step configuration.

The manufacture states "for best installation, lay cork parquet with staggered joints." What this does is hide any irregularities in size from tile to tile. The lot we had had variations up to 3/32". With the customer's blessing it was decided we would do a straight lay installation. This is more difficult as strict attention needs to be paid to tile size in order to avoid gaps. See the cork tile inspection at www.kennethjfrango.com for more information on what a poor installation looks like.

After viewing a few laying patterns we decided the extra effort needed for straight lay was worth it.

We paid very strict attention to staying exactly on our lines.

This method enables the installer to guage the size needed to maintain tight joints. Sometimes you may reject a tile for that spot depending on whether you needed the field to grow or shrink.

Notice how the corner gets set in first.

The cuts will be done while the adhesive is drying on the second half of the room.

All the tiles in a line on the end. The tell tale sign.

I use this extra added 50 lb. weight attached to my normal 75 lb. three section roller. Roll a number of times in different directions. You can hear full contact being made. Once I don't hear that any longer I know I've finished rolling the area.

This is an oak corner molding that we ripped off the radius edges. It is the exact same thickness as the flooring. We cut to fit and adhered with Chemrex, polyurethane adhesive.

Jim is finishing up the cuts on the first side as the adhesive on the other side is just about ready to accept cork. Notice the VCT cutter. As long as it's blade is sharp it will cut cleanly through the cork with no problem.

Part two- same as the first.

Using blue painter's tape for protection, contact adhesive is liberally applied to the vertical section of the step, called the riser.

Some detail work on the baseboard and we're in business.

Customer moved the chairs back in to the room while I was outside finishing up the invoice. I didn't have a chance to get a pic of the entire floor.

Sorry, these are a little blurry.

Looks pretty good.

The ceramic tile, (which I installed also) was higher than the cork. Knowing this when I installed the ceramic I constructed a grout line at the edge and then we installed a stained to match oak trim at the ceramic on top of the cork. Filled any small gaps with matching siliconized sanded caulk. Looked mint.

This floor took four days to install. Lottsa floor prep but that's the only way to get a good looking cork floor.

Solving flooring problems for the people that make it to the people that use it...and everyone inbetween.