Resilient Flooring

Adhesive Bleed, Bubbles and Telegraphing

What causes adhesive bleed, bubbles and telegraphing under resilient flooring, and what the manufacturers say about preventing and fixing each one.

Updated · 3 min read

Bleed, bubbles and telegraphing are the three resilient failures installers see most, and most come back to the same few things: the trowel, the open time, the substrate and the roller. The guidance below draws on several flooring and adhesive makers' instructions.

Symptoms

Each failure has its own look.

What you see What it usually is
Adhesive squeezing up at joints or seams Bleed or oozing
Dark staining coming through the surface Bleed-through from old cutback, removers or markers
Raised, soft spots that move under foot Bubbles or blisters
Ridges, lines or bumps showing in the surface Telegraphing of trowel ridges or the substrate

Bleed and oozing

Bleed usually means too much adhesive, adhesive that's still too wet, or flooring pushed around after it's set.

  • Excess adhesive dries slower and can leave bubbles, ridges and indentations.[6]
  • Sliding tiles into place pushes adhesive up through the seams.[4]
  • Don't over-apply, leave lumps or let the adhesive over-dry.[2]
  • Bleed-through is different: it comes from what's under the adhesive. Never leave residual asphalt (cutback) adhesive under new resilient flooring; it bleeds through.[1] AHF warns that remover solvents leave a residue that can bleed through, and that markers can telegraph and stain.[3]

Bubbles and blisters

Bubbles are trapped air, or solvent and moisture from the adhesive that can't escape.

  • Give the adhesive some open time so gas bubbles and adhesive displacement don't form, especially on non-porous underfloors. Don't let it skin over either, or the bond suffers.[1]
  • Rolling pushes air out. Mannington's V-95 instructions call for rolling, then re-rolling one to two hours later to work out trapped air.[1]
  • Slab moisture above the adhesive's limit is a separate cause. Readings must stay within the adhesive's limits.[4] See Subfloor moisture testing.

Telegraphing

Resilient flooring takes the shape of whatever is under it.

  • Any roughness or unevenness in the subfloor shows through the new flooring.[1]
  • Trowel ridges telegraph too. Skipping the roller is a known cause of telegraphed adhesive ridges.[1] Flexible sheet goods need a finely notched trowel for the same reason.[5]
  • AHF homogeneous sheet calls for smoothing trowel ridges with a 3/16" nap paint roller, rolling with a 100 lb roller in both directions, and checking that the trowel ridges are fully flattened.[2]

How to fix it

Fixes depend on whether the adhesive has set.

  1. While the adhesive is still workable, re-roll in both directions with a 100 lb roller.
  2. If ridges won't roll out, scrape up that section of adhesive and reapply fresh.[2]
  3. Wipe fresh squeeze-out right away with the cleaner the adhesive maker specifies.
  4. For telegraphing from the substrate, the only real fix is to pull the material, correct the substrate and reinstall. See Patching and skim-coating.
  5. For bleed-through from cutback or removers, remove the flooring and get the substrate to what the maker requires.

Prevention

Most of these failures are decided before the flooring goes down.

  • Use the trowel notch on the adhesive label, and replace worn trowels. Worn notches put down too little adhesive.[6] See Trowel notch selection.
  • Respect open time: not too wet, not skinned over.
  • Check transfer by lifting a corner now and then to confirm full coverage.[7]
  • Roll with the right roller at the right time. See Rolling resilient floors.

When to replace instead of repair

If the adhesive has cured, or the cause is the substrate or moisture, rolling won't help. Pull the affected area, fix the cause, and reinstall with fresh adhesive. Keep your moisture readings; a warranty claim will ask for them.

Tools we carry

These cover rolling and spreading.

References

  1. Mannington: Installation handbook
  2. AHF: Homogeneous sheet installation
  3. AHF (Armstrong): Commercial tile installation
  4. Tarkett: VCT installation
  5. Mapei: What is telegraphing?
  6. Mapei: Trowel and adhesive selection
  7. Roberts 3000 product data sheet

Linked PDF documents are archived copies saved by PreFloor Tools so they stay available if the publisher moves or removes them. Check the publisher's website for the latest revision.

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