Hicksville, N.Y.—As times and flooring products change, so do the glues that hold them in place. FCNews spoke with sever al top adhesive executives on what’s new in glue and with their companies, including new technology and applications. “We’ve expanded the technology we started a number of years ago,” said Jim Daubs, director of business development for Taylor Adhesives, “which were the cross-linking resin adhesives. We have expanded them into all product categories of floor covering, not just wood floors where they started. We now have them available for vinyl floors—sheet and tile—carpet and linoleum.

Our Medatec products are specific for each of the flooring categories. “When that cross-link technology cures it forms a fully waterproof bond,” he explained. “We have added that to a series of sealers for concrete slabs that have high-moisture problems. Just recently we introduced a hybrid sealer which is much faster, has a higher threshold for moisture, is a lot less costly than anything we’ve done in the past and is compatible with all flooring types.” Robert McNamara, marketing manager for Bostik, said, on the carpet and vinyl side, the driving force seems to be adhesives that are green and lower VOCs. “That’s really the dominant thing going on there. I believe many installers don’t really realize that they may be buying a product that is may be five or six up to nine or 10 years old. That really isn’t the same product they started buying 10 years ago because as the regulations go down with acceptable VOC levels, the manufacturers have to stay ahead of the curve.

“On the hardwood side,” he added, “the more secure urethanes are still the cat’s meow, so to speak. One of the hot topics right now is the use of moisture barriers as the first step for the wood floors. We are developing one as well. People are definitely buying the product and demanding it. We will be offering one we believe is pretty unique. With hardwood flooring, of course, the less moisture coming from the slab the better.” For Wood Only Myrna Block, executive vice president of DriTac, which deals solely with wood floors, noted the trend toward bamboo and darker, more exotic woods. “That requires urethane. A few years ago we added VOC-compliant urethane to our product line. Sometimes goods imported may not have the best quality control. So we’ve gone into the urethane marketplace.

“One of the newer things people want to do is called wet lay adhesive,” she explained, “which has very little water in it. It is installed only as far as the installer’s arm can reach. They will trowel and lay into it while it is wet. In addition to our staple product, DriTac 6200, we now have Dri-Tac 9200, which is a wet-laying product. We cover all the bases.” Ted Egan, president of ParaChem, noted, because of the types of adhesives companies produce, many are segmented into working with certain mills. “Also, many of the mills, because of the demand for that one particular glue, will only warrant their private-label adhesive for their goods. For an adhesive company like us, we offer a general warranty and provide a letter superceding that of the mill if someone wants to use our product.”

“Another big issue is that of mold, mildew and bacteria,” he added, “so companies are including anti-microbial agents in their products. For example, we have the exclusive distribution rights for Microban in North America. And Microban is the most recognized EPA-regulated anti-microbial used to fight mold, bacteria and mildew in the country. We put this in all our products which makes them very safe. “Of course, another critical issue is the amount of VOCs in your adhesives,” Egan explained. “With all the EPA-regulated, country, district, city, state standards, they’re all different. They all have different demands of how many VOCs you can have in the atmosphere, with California probably being the toughest. “That’s why, in California,” he added “you don’t see many manufacturers of adhesive, because the state has pretty much driven everybody that has any kind of an emission out of the state. That’s why many are in China and India, not necessarily because of the jobs but because of the difficulty in complying with the rules in the U.S.”

Commercial Spray Application methods have changed, he noted, as now one can spray an adhesive onto the subfloor. “There are some spray systems now where you can literally spray the floor and put down VCT tile or double-stick applications for carpet. It gets the mechanic off his feet. “They’ll spray the floor, put the pad down, then they spray the pad and put the carpet over it. With carpet and VCT tiles for schools, you can just spray the floor and set the tiles in. You can do it four or five times as fast as normal so you save a lot on labor while also saving your knees.” “We’ve had to keep up with the advances in the flooring itself, no doubt,” said Daubs.

“Some new sealers we’ve developed for some of our manufacturing clients are interesting. For instance, there are more rigid standards for some of the vinyl backed carpet tile and six-foot products where they have come to us and developed seam sealers that would withstand certain tests that they didn’t before. “And, at the same time, be solvent-free so they can be used in certain states,” he explained. “So we have had to stay ahead of the curve by working with the manufacturers. And not just in carpet backings but virtually everything. The problems associated with luxury vinyl tile are not easy to deal with either.” Daubs noted, Taylor’s Medatec product is a series of the resin-based cross-linking adhesives.

“These are the newest class of adhesives, replacing epoxies and urethanes. They are much better than the latex-based adhesives. The response from installers has been overwhelming. We’re getting new customers everyday. “The thing that is kind of interesting about it is,” he concluded, “now we are having specifiers come to us on how to specify our system into their construction requirements. We’ve had that happen with end users as well as big architectural firms particularly those involved with sensitive healthcare areas.” —Louis Iannaco