Floor Prep and Adhesives: Jobsite conditions are driving enhancements of adhesives and floor prep materials – Sept 2026

By Darius Helm

As contractors and installers are quick to point out, a successful flooring project depends on much more than the floorcovering itself. It hinges on what’s beneath the surface and the success of the materials that marry subfloors to floorcoverings. 

These days, many of the big challenges involve jobsite conditions, which, along with new floorcovering constructions and formats, are fueling the developments of new features and capabilities in floor prep and adhesives.

JOBSITE CONDITIONS

“The greatest level of innovation has occurred where jobsite conditions have become more demanding,” says Mike Leuschner, president of TEC Specialty Products. “Moisture mitigation, self-leveling underlayment and resilient flooring adhesives have seen significant development because they’re directly affected by some of the biggest trends impacting flooring today: compressed schedules, labor shortages, increasing moisture-related risks, and the use of LVT, sheet vinyl and other resilient flooring products.”

Most of the issues derive from the compressed construction schedules—not enough time for concrete to cure, hence the moisture issues; not enough time or emphasis on product acclimation, leading to gapping and other product failures. 

With these compressed schedules, there are a lot of elements that installers need to get right for the project to succeed.

“Fast‑track products enable quicker turnaround, but skipping foundational steps—such as moisture testing, proper priming or leveling—can lead to installation failures,” notes Jim Muggleton, director of marketing for Uzin Utz North America. “Cutting corners in substrate preparation remains the most common and costly pitfall.” 

“The most common issues we see involve a lack of proper moisture testing, inadequate substrate preparation/temperature acclimation, and selecting products that are not aligned with the specific conditions of the project,” adds Leuschner. 

The fundamental mistake is treating preparation as an installation step rather than as a diagnostic tool, notes Jason Pribble, director of marketing for Keene Inc. and Platform Performance Flooring Systems. He adds, “Common problems include inadequate moisture testing, failing to mechanically remove bond breakers, leaving incompatible adhesive residue in place, incorrect primer application, overwatering cementitious products, failing to honor moving joints and selecting an adhesive or patch based solely on speed instead of compatibility. The consequences can include delamination, cracking, osmotic blistering, telegraphing, adhesive failure, flooring discoloration and expensive callbacks. The cost of preparation is small compared with removing and replacing a failed finished floor.”

Matt Liebert, general manager of Taylor Adhesives, warns against failing to follow flooring and adhesive manufacturers’ instructions. “The consequences are typically failed floors and unhappy customers,” he says.

NEW FORMATS AND CONSTRUCTIONS

Floorcovering developments have also impacted floor prep, most notably larger formats and the prevalent use of LVT—particularly rigid LVT products like SPC. Larger formats are becoming more popular across all hard surface categories, from porcelain tile and hardwood to laminate and LVT. Large format flooring requires additional care in substrate preparation, particularly in terms of flatness, notes Liebert.

“The finished floor is increasingly exposing the quality of the substrate beneath it,” says Pribble. “Thin resilient products can reveal surface imperfections that might have been concealed by thicker flooring. At the same time, larger-format tile and other rigid finishes place greater emphasis on flatness and control of substrate movement. That has increased demand for high-flow levelers, very smooth patches and systems that can achieve tighter flatness tolerances.”

Those smoother substrates prevent telegraphing, lippage and visible surface defects. Selecting the right adhesive is also critical. Installers need adhesives with stronger bond strength, dimensional stability, extended open time and enhanced support for larger, heavier flooring materials.

The number of suppliers that now offer self-leveling products has taken off and new developments have made them much easier to use. Jeff Johnson, Mapei’s manager of flooring installation products, notes that “self-leveling is getting easier to install than skim coating and patching.” 

TOTAL SYSTEMS PROVIDERS

A couple of forces have been driving floor prep firms and adhesive producers toward offering the whole gamut. One is the general trend in business to be a one-stop shop, a strategy for securing a chunk of the larger market. And the other is the efficacy and higher success rate of using materials designed to work together.

Some floor prep producers have been extending their portfolios to include adhesives, and adhesive producers have been expanding their offering into floor prep products. Other times, acquisitions have brought together these two product groupings, like with Ardex’s acquisition of Henry in 2000, Uzin Utz’s 2001 Pallmann purchase, and Sika’s acquisition of AkzoNobel’s Buildings Adhesives business (including Schönox) in 2013 and DriTac in 2021. 

And then, of course, there’s the private-label side. The larger flooring manufacturers offer their own adhesives and other accessories. Shaw has put all of its accessories under its TotalWorx division, including floor prep products. (See box on page 48.)

Leuschner says, “More broadly, we’re seeing growing demand for integrated systems rather than standalone products. Customers increasingly want confidence that moisture mitigation, substrate preparation, self-leveling underlayments and adhesives will work together as a complete installation system.”

ADHESIVES AND FLOORCOVERINGS

Adhesives come in a range of chemistries and the use of solvent-based adhesives has deminished significantly. Their high VOCs and myriad environmental toxicities led the industry over the last decade or so to switch to mostly water-based acrylic adhesives. Acrylic adhesives are typically used for vinyl and carpet tile installations, which together represent the bulk of floorcovering installations in both the residential and commercial markets.

Adhesives need to perform for the specific characteristics of the floorcoverings being installed, and that includes porosity, chemical compatibility, density and CTE (coefficient of thermal expansion). And it’s worth noting that different floorcoverings expand and contract in different ways. Rigid but porous products like hardwood and laminate are more affected by humidity, which expands the air inside of them, while non-porous resilient floors like vinyl aren’t as vulnerable to humidity as they are to temperature, which expands the polymer itself.

For broadloom carpet, water-based latex adhesives are widely used. And for wood, moisture-cured urethane adhesives are most common, along with silanes and some hybrids. “Wood floor adhesives will remain slightly elastic after curing, allowing the floor to move naturally without breaking the bond,” says Matt Eller, director of sales for Lighthouse Adhesives. As with all flooring types, Eller adds, “we want to make sure that the formula has the right affinity for the backing that it is intended to bond.”

Several adhesive producers offer products that work for both carpet tile and resilient flooring. It’s an efficient solution, but some contractors still lean toward using stronger adhesives on LVT to prevent issues like gapping with expansion and contraction. 

One major trend with resilient installations is using pressure-sensitive releasable adhesives instead of hard-set adhesives. Adhesive costs are comparable, but the installation costs a lot less and goes a lot faster. With pressure-sensitive adhesives, after the adhesive is spread across the space, the installer waits for a short period of time for the adhesive to flash off before installing the floorcovering.

Hard-set adhesives perform better in applications where temperature can’t be fully controlled, including when there’s direct sunlight. For this reason, there’s a trend toward wet-laying over pressure-sensitive adhesive, forming a stronger bond. According to sources, many flooring manufacturers are pushing these sorts of wet-lay applications because they know their flooring products will perform better. 

However, it does make for a more complicated, and potentially messier, installation. Some industry experts report that it’s hard to work on the floor without adhesive pushing up through the seams and that the installation process can inhibit the curing. And again, these same experts insist that proper acclimation by itself tends to eliminate issues like gapping that wet-laying pressure-sensitive adhesive is designed to prevent.

The other major trend in flooring adhesives, arguably the stronger trend since water-based adhesives replaced solvent-based ones, is moisture performance. Adhesives producers have made massive strides in recent years, coming out with products that function over slabs with up to 99% relative humidity. It’s a major problem-solver for fast-track construction projects.

PRODUCER OVERVIEW

Sika, headquartered in Baar, Switzerland, has in recent years acquired a range of construction materials firms across the globe. In terms of the U.S. flooring market, the two most prominent have been DriTac and HPS North America—HPS distributes products from Schönox, which was itself acquired by Sika in 2013. 

According to John Lio, Sika USA’s director of marketing, “Sika offers a complete flooring installation system, with subfloor preparation products, moisture mitigation solutions, underlayments, patches, adhesives and tile-setting materials that are rigorously tested to work together as a fully compatible system.” He notes that the core of this approach is the Sika Secure System and its multi-tier product offering, which “creates a true single-source flooring installation solution,” through its Schönox, SikaBond, SikaLevel and SikaTile product families.

“A key differentiator is Sika’s hands-on technical service and field support, which helps customers select the right solutions and ensure successful installations,” says Lio. He also notes, “Sika has strengthened its emphasis on customer training through our Sika Technical Education Program (STEP) curriculum, field support and relationship-building to help contractors remain competitive in a challenging market.”

Among its best-selling products are SikaBond wood floor bonding solutions, which offer installation efficiency and long-term durability, as well as its Schönox and SikaLevel patching and floor preparation compounds, which help ensure optimal substrate conditions.

Taylor Adhesives, a long-time leader and innovator in the category, was purchased from Meridian Adhesives Group by Avery Dennison just last year. The firm produces wet products out of two facilities in Dalton, Georgia and another in Fontana, California. In addition to adhesives, Taylor offers a range of substrate prep products, including moisture barriers, encapsulators and primers. 

“At Taylor we are always developing solutions for the flooring industry such as Resolute RT, which provides moisture protection and sound control with rapid turnover for resilient flooring,” says Matt Liebert, who took over as general manager from Ralph Grogan in May of this year. Liebert was CEO of Uzin Utz North America from 2006 to 2024.

Resolute RT is a moisture-cured modified-urethane elastomeric adhesive with an unlimited moisture barrier and a high-strength waterproof bond, and it works with a range of resilient products, as well as carpet tile, cork and artificial turf. It was designed as a single-component replacement for two-part epoxies.

Dynamic has been the firm’s best-selling product for many years. “It is designed to perform over high RH and MVER [moisture vapor emission rate] substrates with a wide variety of flooring products,” says Liebert. “It also has excellent resistance to high pH.” Dynamic, which is used with broadloom, carpet tile and the full range of resilient flooring products, is a firm-set modified transitional pressure-sensitive adhesive formulated from a hybrid acrylic chemistry.

Uzin Utz, a German firm with U.S. headquarters in Aurora, Colorado, provides a complete system of subfloor preparation materials, moisture-mitigation solutions and high-performance adhesives for all major flooring categories. It goes to market under the Uzin, Pallmann and Wolff brands—Wolff offers tools and machinery; Pallman specializes in hardwood flooring solutions, including adhesives and finishing systems; and Uzin focuses on floor prep, including primers, moisture mitigation products, leveling and patching compounds, and flooring adhesives.

According to the firm, flooring adhesives including KE 40 Caiman, KE 39 TPS, and Pallmann Nexus have been enhanced in recent years to meet growing demands for moisture tolerance, stronger performance and fast‑track installation. Not only do they tolerate higher moisture levels, but they cure faster and provide improved bond strength.

Uzin Utz’s self-leveling portfolio stands out as one of its strongest performers, thanks to their versatility, uniform finish and reliability across a wide range of flooring types and jobsite conditions.

The firm uses social media, print media and hands-on training at its Waco, Texas facility to educate installers on its products, along with webinars, jobsite demonstrations and direct technical field support.

Mapei, a $5 billion Italian firm founded in 1937, divides its installation materials into its floorcovering installation systems and its stone and ceramic systems. The firm offers one of the widest ranges of products, including adhesives for every type of hard and soft surface flooring, self-levelers, sound-reduction and moisture-mitigation products, sealants and joint fillers, primers, and patching and skimcoating products. 

The family-owned company, which launched its U.S. operations more than 40 years ago, has production facilities in Illinois, Texas, Georgia and Quebec for wet products and another 19 or so across North America for powder-based products—Mapei also makes cement-based products including mortars, grouts and self-leveling products. 

All of the products it sells in North America are also made here. However, some raw materials are sourced overseas, and with the added costs of transportation and energy use in general, Mapei announced a price increase on August 1.

Recent product intros that address installation challenges include a pressure-sensitive adhesive that cures tougher than typical pressure-sensitive products for more gap control, addressing the dimensional instability of products like LVT. And introduced in the last year or so is a wet-set hard-set adhesive that even at room temperature “sets like glass,” according to Johnson, making it a good solution for applications with lots of temperature changes—and that could include anything from a space with lots of direct sunlight to an environment as extreme as a hot yoga studio.

In 2018, the company launched a one-component, modified-silane, 100% solids adhesive with a moisture vapor barrier built in for wet-lay applications. The permanent bond of this product makes it suitable for heavy-duty commercial jobs that are vulnerable to water exposure.

The firm also offers two epoxy systems (one a standard set and the other a fast set) with moisture vapor barriers for installations just a few days after concrete is poured, along with a water-based, two-coat, high-solids moisture control membrane and textured primer for self-leveling underlayments, and a urethane one-component product that is gaining increasing traction, according to Johnson.

Mapei has also been developing a calcium-aluminate-based high-flow, self-leveling range of products that are very fluid and easy to work with.

Laticrete, another family-owned company, is headquartered in Bethany, Connecticut, and is celebrating it 70th anniversary this year. The firm’s portfolio features floor prep materials and adhesives, mostly focused on the tile and stone market, including moisture mitigation systems, self-leveling underlayments and more. It also offers concrete and substrate prep materials, shower systems, floor heat systems, and profiles and trims. 

Recent innovations include Vapor Ban Primer W, a two-coat water-based moisture mitigation and self-leveling primer in a single product, with each coat drying in about two hours; and Nxt Level Flow, a highly flowable self-leveling underlayment designed for efficiency and performance, along with rapid return-to service capabilities—many floorcoverings can be installed in as little as 24 hours. Another recent breakthrough is a pre-mixed adhesive mortar called Multimax 1, which is a premium adhesive with no limitations for setting tile and stone. It can be used in interior, exterior and even submerged applications.

Laticrete introduces new products twice each year and supports these launches through targeted communications with distributors, contractors and industry partners. And it reports frequent partnering with flooring manufacturers to evaluate product compatibility and develop installation solutions.

One of the newest players in the field is Resaca, Georgia-headquartered Lighthouse Adhesives, which has only been around since 2023 but has already found great traction in the market. The firm was founded by industry veterans from partner firm (and part owner) Textile Rubber & Chemical Company (TRCC) and its former subsidiary, XL Brands, now owned by Bostik. Heading up the team is general manager Matt Tuttolomondo, who founded the firm with his father, Joe Tuttolomondo. Director of sales Matt Eller was previously with XL Brands. The name is a tribute to TRCC founder Harvey Howalt, in a nod to his passion for sailing and his role as a guiding light for the firm.

TRCC’s XL Brands, following its 2018 acquisition by Bostik, moved out of its facility in Dalton, Georgia, so Lighthouse took it over, installed tanks and pipes, and started making adhesives. The firm currently offers a range of water-based adhesives for resilient flooring, carpet tile, broadloom, cove base, synthetic turf and hardwood.

Its best-selling product is UniGlu, a universal pressure-sensitive releasable adhesive for vinyl flooring and carpet tile that can handle up to 99% RH, flashes off in a half hour or so, has a 12-hour open time and cures in 24 hours.

Also, the firm is currently introducing a new moisture mitigation product called FF Guard for floating floor applications, replacing 6 mil polyfilm with a monolithic membrane that dries in about half an hour and is designed to release moisture at a steady rate. The product is very price competitive, according to Eller.

Going forward, Lighthouse is focused on broadening its portfolio with innovations and new chemistries. The firm has private-label accounts and also goes to the market through distribution.

TEC Specialty Products, originally founded in 1957 and acquired by H.B. Fuller in 2006, changed ownership in late 2024 with Pacific Avenue Capital Partners acquiring the operation in late 2024 as a standalone business. In 2025, TEC brought in Eric Daliere as CEO—Daliere formerly headed up Tarkett North America and Tarkett Sports—with Mike Leuschner as president.

“Our portfolio spans the entire flooring installation lifecycle, from moisture management and substrate preparation to advanced self-leveling technologies and high-performance adhesive systems,” says Leuschner. 

“Each solution is designed to solve a specific challenge that impacts project success,” he notes. “LiquiDam and LiquiDam EZ help contractors proactively manage moisture-related risk. Level Set 350 and Level Set 400 HF help create the flatter, smoother substrates that modern flooring materials require while improving installation efficiency. The Flexera adhesive family helps contractors achieve the performance of premium flooring systems without sacrificing productivity on the jobsite.”

Flexera flooring adhesives, characterized by high bond strength, water resistance and long-term durability, are TEC’s highest-selling product category. Leuschner notes that their success reflects a broad shift in the market. “Customers are placing greater value on complete installation systems rather than evaluating individual products in isolation,” he says. “That’s why TEC continues to invest in integrated solutions spanning moisture management, substrate preparation, self-leveling and adhesives, all designed to work together and support successful installations from start to finish.”

Platform Performance Flooring Systems started out in 1956 as Dependable, was acquired by Keene, Inc. in 2012, and was rebranded as Performance a couple of years ago. Keene, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, produces a range of building materials.

The firm’s portfolio of floor prep products includes self-leveling underlayments, patching and skim-coat products, primers and sealers, concrete repair products, epoxy moisture mitigation, rolled underlayments, acoustic and uncoupling membranes, and related installation systems. On the setting-material side, the firm manufactures KeedeSet thinset mortars and grouts, along with waterproofing and crack-isolation products.

The firm reports, “We are also expanding our adhesive offering as part of our evolution from a traditional floor-preparation manufacturer into a more complete flooring systems provider.”

To address jobsite challenges, the firm has found traction with its recently enhanced products, like Platform ALG, a fiber-reinforced, high-flow gypsum SLU designed for difficult substrates and approved wood applications without reinforcing lath, while products such as Platform FT target accelerated schedules. Other flagship products, like White Skimcoat, have been offered for decades without much need for enhancement.

Platform addresses moisture mitigation with products like Platform EMS, a one-coat, low-viscosity, 100%-solids epoxy system designed for concrete with relative humidity levels up to 100%. And for sound abatement, it offers products like KeedeRoll MT, which provides both uncoupling and sound-control performance beneath ceramic tile, while also helping protect the finish from substrate movement. Testing over an eight-inch concrete slab produced a 21-point Delta IIC improvement and an IIC rating of 53.