Removing IVC

[Darol Wester]

Has anyone had the pleasure of doing this? I just finished my first and I'll tell you, it ain't much fun. Some of the backing remains on the floor, so you have to scrap it up, leaving the particles everywhere and stuck yet again to the adhesive. Try and sweep it becomes useless. I ended up having to scrap the complete floor again, keeping the pile ahead of me which is a royal PITA.

I'm hoping someone here has a better approach to this chore to enlighten me for the next one. Never did like this stuff.

 

[msinstallations]

I always tearup as much as possible and clean it the best I can and then give it a coat of Ardex feather finish, clean it some more and finish coat with some more feather finish. Even if the vinyl peels up clean you still have to top coat it and prepare the floor for new covering. It is the future we have to live with it.

 

[Darol Wester]

Well, I can tell you one thing, my charges will change on the next go-round. When I looked at the job for getting them a price, I pulled up maybe 8-10 sq. ft. of the vinyl and it came up fairly easy so I priced it accordingly. That was the only place in the kitchen that came up that easy.

I've never seen the advantage of this stuff to begin with and hope it's a passing thing like so many other hair brain ideas they've come up with. But then......that's just one guys opinion.

 

[Floorist]

Darol, this being removed after no more than a few years, proves my point. IVC vinyl is a temporary floor covering. If taken care of, the felt-backed vinyls would last 20 years or more. I can see nothing that would convince me that IVC would last more than a few years. IMHO, it and laminate are both short-term products, and so are vinyl planks. Maybe that's what most of today's customers want, I don't know, but I have encountered many customers who were disappointed in the lack of longevity from these products.

 

[Darol Wester]

That's kind of the way I feel about it. I guess it can depend on the quality of the material going down. I've installed some laminates that have lasted quite a while and still look great. Again, they were top quality. On the other hand, some of this stuff shouldn't be sold. As long as there's folks out there that will buy it, it's for sale.

 

[Floorist]

I guess to be fair, I have installed vinyl and carpet that you could hold up to the light and read a newspaper through.

 

[Nick]

A lot of that cheap lam is nothing more then wall board . I dropped a 6" piece on a lady's floor one time during a inspection and it put a quarter size hole right through it .

 

[msinstallations]

One reason the vinyl may have stayed on the flloor and not seperated with the rest of the vinyl is the previous installer may have layed the vinyl in the glue when it was still wet, if that is the case it would make it permanent instead of the release application.

I have installed the release vinyl and pulled the floor back with no problems.