When it comes to environmental sustainability, a fundamental principle for Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle has a important impact to support environmental sustainability by reducing product wastes. For the flooring industries, one promising approach to this goal is through the use of glue-free flooring installation methods, which can have significant benefits in reducing the negative environmental impacts as well as time saving for the installation process.
Type of Glue Free Installations in Resilient Vinyl Floorings
The concept to develop glue free installation technology for the flooring category can be as early as 1993 when it was applied for the hardwoods and laminate flooring. The same concept of technology was then applied for resilient vinyl flooring products. According to T&C supply company, the very first vinyl click flooring was introduced in 2012, since then vinyl flooring has gained significant momentum in market growth and popularity. Now with more than 2 decades of vinyl flooring product developments, there are now multiple installation solutions that works as glue free installation options.
- Click Vinyl Floorings with Unilin, Valinge, or I4F technologies.
- Loose Lay Vinyl Floorings
- Magnetic Vinyl Floorings with IOBAC technology.
- Loose Lay Grip with Seta-Grip or Quik-Grip technologies.
Benefits of Glue Free Flooring Installation
There are many benefit for using glue free flooring installation floorings. It is not only convenient in installation, providing a easier and time saving installation process, it can also reduce the use of glue which are known to have potential toxic substances such as formaldehyde and phthalates. In addition, without the use for applied glue adhesive, flooring products can be easily removed from the subfloor without needing for professional flooring removal services. A potential costs that many home owners and investors often overlooked.
How glue free flooring improve environmental sustainability
- Reduce the use of glue adhesion to minimize negative VoC impacts
- Reduced removal and treatment costs at product end of life
- Provide opportunity for second life application with flooring integrity undamaged
- Keeping flooring’s original composition for easier and effective recycling and remaking them into flooring products
Limitation with current glue free flooring installations (Click & Loose Lay)
While new installation innovations such as Click n Lock systems provide an excellent solution to remove the need to apply adhesion, however, manufacturers needs to pay a patent license fee which costs are reflected in the retailer price. In addition, with the increasing thickness requirement due to the click n lock structure, the overall cost of the vinyl flooring products is also increased. The same challenge is also apparent for loose lay vinyl floorings, as it needs additional thickness to effective settle onto the subfloor with minimized movements.
Conventional dry back vinyl flooring is one of the mostly used flooring product for multifamily and rent property flooring applications. The frequently used 2.0mm, 2.5mm, and 3.0mm vinyl flooring provide inexpensive flooring options that is suitable for these type of properties. Renovation and remodeling of the flooring can be as frequent as 1 to 2 years. Therefore significant market share and opportunity cannot be overlooked when it comes to dry back vinyl flooring product lines.
Mega Trend for Commercial Loose Lay Grip Vinyl Flooring Collections
The current limitation in conventional loose lay vinyl flooring and click vinyl flooring is obvious. With the structural requirement for thicker core layers means loose lay flooring and click flooring will not be able to provide cost effective flooring solutions for commercial and multifamily home production projects. Therefore the commercial and home production markets have a market niche for vinyl floorings that provide superior gripping property with thinner base layer. The currently market prefers the 2.0mm and 2.5mm which both offers distinctively low costs and this is where loose lay grip technologies can effectively comes in. Brands such as Aspecta and Oneflor has launched Seta-Grip and Quik-Grip with the intention to target these market demands.
Hengdi Loose Lay Grip Technology for LVT Flooring
Here at Hengdi Floor China, our R&D team has created an affordable loose lay grip technology for the LVT flooring application. Our formulated underlayer film are modified with nano-silica composition with provide superior gripping performance. As one of the few innovators in resilient flooring products, Hengdi is confident to offer inexpensive 2.0mm vinyl flooring that offers glue free installation.
