Before You Install Your Cork Tiles (Opening Boxes & Staining the Floor)
When you receive the boxes of tiles, remove them from the boxes a few days before you’re going to install them. Carefully cut down opposite corners to open the boxes and lift out the tiles. Let the tiles acclimate in to your normal room temperature for roughly 3 days. You should also shuffle the tiles as there is naturally some shading variations and you’d want to mix slightly lighter or darker tiles throughout rather than have them fall all in one section.
Removing Old Adhesive
A mechanical method of removing old adhesive from concrete is called ” Shot Blast”. It’s a machine with a square foot print. Once you’ve finished shot blasting the floor and cleaning up all the residue, you would have to smooth the rough concrete with a cementious patch or a cementious self-leveling cement. Let it cure as per manufacturer’s instructions. Once cured, you can put our cork tiles down directly on the cement floor.
Will Your Adhesive Work on my Floor?
Our water-based latex contact adhesive works fine over hot-water radiant heated floors, concrete and wood. Linoleum and vinyl should be removed or you can put a 1/4″ plywood subfloor over top of it. You need to glue and staple the plywood down and then sand across the joints to one foot on either side so the plywood seams won’t show through.