Hardwood flooring adhesive/glue

The full-surface gluing of parquet forms the basis for a stable and durable floor, because the fixed connection with the subfloor provides significant advantages.

However, gluing hardwood flooring involves considerable effort. What is important when gluing parquet and which parquet adhesive is the right one, you will learn in this article.

Parquet adhesive recommendations from this article:

What are the advantages of sticking parquet?

In recent years, the parquet floor seems to have lost some of its importance.

Because many house and apartment owners prefer the floating installation of modern pre-finished parquet, which is faster and less complicated and also usually more cost-effective.

However, if you want to benefit from the advantages of a high-quality and stable floor in the long term, you should still stick the parquet.

Because the gluing of parquet has some decisive advantages:

Due to the fixed connection, parquet adheres firmly to the subfloor for decades, which also makes it easier to sand down and renovate more than once.

Furthermore, glued parquet is also quieter:

impact sound and other noises when using the floor are transmitted less.

Another decisive advantage over floating installation is particularly relevant for parquet on underfloor heating systems:

the gluing process does not create air cushions between the parquet and the subfloor, which improves the thermal conductivity It should be noted, however, that glued parquet cannot be removed so easily if the floor is to be replaced at some point.

What parquet adhesives are there?

The right parquet adhesive is of course decisive for an optimum result when laying glued parquet.

Not every glue is equally suitable for every type of parquet. When purchasing the parquet adhesive, therefore, it is first and foremost important to ensure that the product is matched to both the substrate and the parquet floor to be used.

Manufacturer’s instructions and installation instructions provide important information about this and should therefore be closely monitored.

Due to the continuous development of the adhesive industry, parquet adhesives have improved in recent years.

Most of the products available in specialist shops have not only become more user-friendly in handling and higher quality in terms of adhesion, but also pass the eco-test.

While until a few years ago the proportion of solvents and other controversial ingredients in many parquet adhesives was still very high, there are now a number of ecological products that are equally harmless to humans and the environment.

Well-known manufacturers of parquet adhesives, who are also test winners in various independent product comparisons, are, for example:

  • Retol
  • Ponal
  • Brücol
  • Wakol
  • Sika
  • Stauf
  • Haro
  • Uzin
  • Ardex
  • Schönox
  • Bona
  • Bostik
  • Thomsit
  • u. from above

In general, a distinction can be made between the following parquet adhesives Be:

Silane-based adhesives

The most modern type of parquet adhesives are hybrid adhesives made of MS polymer (modified silane). They are free of solvents, water and isocyanate and are also weather and UV resistant.

This is why they are becoming more and more important and are increasingly replacing solvent adhesives, which are now banned. Silane parquet adhesives are distinguished above all by the fact that they remain permanently elastic after curing and offer the parquet a corresponding scope for swelling and shrinkage. This is why MS parquet adhesives are also universally applicable and suitable for gluing almost all parquet types as well as for use on underfloor heating systems.

Reaction resin adhesives

Reaction resin adhesives also belong to the universally applicable parquet adhesives. These are available both as 1-component PUR adhesives and as 2-component PUR adhesives. While 1-component parquet adhesives remain elastic after curing and are therefore also suitable for bonding stress-bearing parquet, 2-component PUR adhesives cure inelastically and are therefore mainly recommended for shear-resistant parquet laying.

Dispersion adhesives

Dispersion parquet adhesives are also still widely used – especially for the shear-resistant bonding of solid parquet, as they do not give the floor any more room to move after curing. They are mainly water-based and use little or no solvents. However, dispersion adhesives are not quite so easy to use. When laying the parquet, for example, a certain time window must be observed in which the adhesive shows its optimum adhesive properties. It should also be noted that the water content in the adhesive may possibly lead to increased swelling of the parquet.

Powder adhesives

These parquet adhesives consisting of plastic powder or plaster or cement as well as various fillers are also solvent-free adhesives. The powder to be mixed with water is suitable for the laying of low-stress parquet types such as mosaic or multi-layer finished parquet.

Parquet glue with solvents

In addition to the above-mentioned modern parquet adhesives without solvents, there are also some solvent-based products on the market. However, these should – if at all – only be used in individual exceptional cases. In principle, the use of such parquet adhesives is not recommended.

Beware of old parquet adhesives!

Particular care should be taken with older parquet, as the parquet adhesives used at the time may contain harmful ingredients.

Until the 1970s, for example, black parquet adhesive made of coal tar was frequently used , which can contain demonstrably carcinogenic substances such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Parquet glued in this way can be dangerous, for example because of a defective sealant:

Because the harmful substances contained therein, such as benzo(a)pyrene, enter the room air via fine cracks in the parquet surface and bind to dust.

However, it is not immediately necessary to remove the floor if there is black glue under the parquet.

However, regular and careful inspection of the parquet surface and a dust test should be carried out to prevent the release of the substance.

However, if you want to be on the safe side, not only must the parquet be completely removed, but also the screed underneath must be chiseled out completely, since abrasive of the black adhesive is not possible due to the dust formation.

In addition to PAH and PCBs, old parquet adhesives may also contain asbestos, which can be released, in particular by demolition or grinding work. Renovation of hardwood flooring with asbestos-containing adhesive should therefore only be carried out by specialist companies, which have been trained accordingly in handling harmful substances.

Gluing parquet: That’s what matters

The basic requirements for gluing parquet are a dry, clean and even substrate as well as optimum room conditions with a temperature of at least 16°C and 40 to 60% humidity.

Before actually starting to glue the parquet, the first three rows of the parquet should first be fitted without parquet adhesive.

In this way, the individual elements can be cut to size and any changes made to the direction of installation.

It is also advisable to become familiar with the application of the parquet adhesive before on a chipboard. In principle, modern parquet adhesives are easy to apply, but handling the putty requires a little practice.

When the parquet is bonded, step by step should be taken.

Since most parquet adhesives have a certain processing time (usually about 30 minutes) in which they have the optimum adhesive strength, only the section should be coated with adhesive on which parquet can also be laid during this time.

Otherwise, there is a risk that the adhesive will decrease and the parquet adhesive will have to be removed again.

What is the best way to apply parquet adhesive?

The parquet adhesive is applied fully and evenly to the respective floor section.

Applying the parquet adhesive works best with a serrated trowel with triangular teeth. Which serration the trowel should have depends on the type of parquet adhesive and the parquet to be laid.

The required thickness of the parquet adhesive and the recommended trowel notch size is normally indicated in the adhesive application instructions.

In addition, there are also generally valid recommendations as to which tooth fillers should be used for the different types of parquet.

These are as follows:

B3: Mosaic parquet, 8 mm parquet

B5: 2-layer parquet up to 60 cm length, Lamparkett

B9: Finished parquet, 10-mm parquet, multi-layer parquet

B11: strip parquet up to 120 cm long, multi-layer parquet up to 60 cm long

B12: Boarded parquet, planks up to 60 cm, multi-layer parquet over 60 cm long

B15: Wooden paving, solid floorboards from 120 cm length and 12 cm width

How much parquet glue is needed?

To calculate the consumption of parquet adhesive, the common recommendation is to calculate with 1.2 kg per square metre.

However, the exact consumption can vary considerably depending on the product and type of parquet – therefore, the manufacturer’s instructions regarding the thickness of the parquet adhesive to be applied should be checked before purchase.

A further calculation basis is to multiply the order quantity of the tooth filler by the number of square meters of the parquet to be laid.

How much do parquet adhesives cost?

Actual costs for the calculated amount of parquet adhesive also depend on the respective product. For example, low-cost dispersion adhesives are available for as low as 3.50 euros per kilo, synthetic resin adhesives cost an average of around 7 euros per kilo, while high-quality parquet adhesives made of reaction resin cost more than 10 euros per kilo.

Remove parquet glue

If parquet is laid glued, sooner or later it is also the removal of the parquet adhesive. How much effort is involved depends on the parquet adhesive used and the type of parquet.

In order to remove smaller adhesive residues from the freshly laid parquet, simple cleaning cloths with a small amount of solvents are usually sufficient.

Alternatively, the residues – possibly previously warmed with a hair dryer – can also be treated with conventional cooking oil.

Furniture polish, erasers made of natural rubber or pure orange oil can also help, as can special adhesive removers, brake cleaners, acetone or spirits.

Larger quantities of parquet adhesivecan to be sanded with a grinding machine. It is important to remove the excess parquet adhesive as soon as possible during installation, because after a maximum of 12 hours most adhesives are completely cured.

However, if full-surface adhesive residues are to be removed after the removal of glued parquet, the procedure is much more complex.

* Last updated on  2024-03-18 / We are using affiliate links / All images are served from the Amazon Product Advertising API.

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