CETEC has investigated, tested and resolved a wide range of flooring failures over the past two decades. The CETEC investigatory approach is to obtain data, test surfaces and substrates, assess conditions and floor usage and ask questions of the parties involved. These facts are then interpreted and if required recreated in small scale testing, prior to reporting our conclusions.
 

Whilst flooring failure investigations are often complex with several contributing factors, the failure can be nominally categorised into a:

• Selection Failure

• Application Failure

• Usage Failure

Selection Failure
The selection of poor sub-components or an inappropriate floor type for the end usage can result a wide range of failure types including volatile or off-gassing issues, adhesion failure, poor impact resistance, colour alteration, slip resistance and so on.

Application Failure
The poor application of a floor can be due to poor preparation. Some of our past investigations have found that the correct primer was not used, or was unevenly applied or lacked sufficient curing time. Etching or treatment of, or an inconsistent substrate may result in inadequate or variable adhesion between an intermediate layer or top surface and the substrate. This can lead to a dramatic failure of the flooring system, such as delamination (as seen in photograph of this concrete floor) or blistering, involving costly reparation works and legal issues in determining cause and fault.  Sub-surface or remaining moisture is also a common problem.

Usage Failure
Cleaning practices inappropriate for the flooring type can lead to slip hazards and visual problems (ie discolouration) or even a surface layer breakdown.

A range of problems such as abrasion, wear and impact failure can occur if usage conditions are different to those anticipated when the flooring system was selected.