Factors influence flooring failures

If the flooring gets failed, never blame the product first. The majority of flooring failures are due to application mistakes or carelessness.

Failures can have root causes:


Prior to flooring application
During flooring application
After application, prior to service
During service
Failure factors prior to flooring application


Design failures: two weak substrate, poor reinforcement.
Wrong flooring product selection: unsuitable for actual working conditions.
Incompatible products
Age of material: Shelf life exceeded
Improper storage conditions:* temperature/humidity/leaks…
Wrong mixing proportion: not all component added or even improper weight or packaging)
Bad or no substrate evaluation:
Streng: Compression, Cohesion or pull-out
Moisture content
Dew point
Wrong mixing tools/equipment
Inadequate surface preparation
Substrate too old (primers which are not sticky)
No scabbing, grinding, shot or sand blasting when required
No priming/ inadequate priming/no dampening/saturation
No broadcasting, no blinding when required
Inadequate QS type
Superficial condensation (not checking ambient conditions and dew point)
Excessive surface humidity – H2O reacts with isocyanides resulting of CO2
Insufficient mixing time (leaving lumps in mortars, colour streak in resin resins, etc.
Only one of a two component system applied (no hardener in Epoxy system)
Not pouring epoxy into another container (may leave unmixed material in the bottom edges)
Supervision of application required: improperly trained applicators
Inadequate applications:
two low temperature -> no reaction (cementitious or epoxy)
high ambient humidity -> bad film formation of water based resins
liquid applied membranes: delayed film formation causes blistering
single layer facade mortar: carbonation
No homogenisation of components prior to mixing. Setting of pigment or aggregate, causes not homogeneous results or performance.
Water or solvent addition to increase yield: make application easier but ruins product.
Wrong or inadequate application tools
Improper application thickness: too thin may not have enough material to achieve full properties or too thick may cause setting, cracking…
Contamination of surface in between layers/coats by foreign materials: dust, chemical incompatible products (silicones), welding particles, etc,
Pot life not controlled: end of pot life not visible
Contamination from release agents on the pin-rollers used.
Sabotage: addition of foreign substrate to the mix.
Weakening of the concrete substrate due to sulfate contamination in high water table.
Proper training or simply reading the Product Data Sheet and Method Statement with prevent most of above factors.

Failure factors after application and before service of flooring


Other trades present, working on the floor without properly protecting it.
Welding
Scratching by pulling loads over the surface
Failure factors during service of flooring


Inadequate service temperature
Unsuitable chemical environment
Unsuitable cleaning methods
Unexpected or modified working condition over the service time of application.
These can be traced back to bad product selection, or lack of information when specifying a product or system.