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Flooring Installation

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One question we get asked a lot is whether you can install glue down vinyl over tiles — whether porcelain tiles, slate tiles, or baked terracotta tiles.

The short answer is: in most cases, yes. But some tile types are easier than others, and there are important checks and balances to complete before you proceed.

Step 1: Check the Integrity of the Tiles

If tiles are not properly bonded into the substrate, they may sound hollow when tapped. This is a big red flag. Any tiles that are loose, cracked, water-damaged, or covered in residue will need to be removed before installation can continue.

Step 2: Eliminate Surface Contamination

Tiles must be free of contaminants such as dirt, waxes, oils, or sealants. These can usually be removed with a strong tile cleaner or diluted acid solution. In tougher cases, grinding may be required.

Terracotta tiles can be especially challenging, as many are sealed with linseed oil. These need to be ground back to the raw core before primers can be applied.

Step 3: Know Which Tiles Are Unsuitable

While porcelain and baked tiles are usually workable, slate tiles are a no-go. Slate has a layered natural structure, and those layers can unpredictably release over time. For this reason, slate tiles must always be removed before installing glue down vinyl.

Step 4: Apply a Slurry and Screed

Once tiles are clean and sound, a slurry primer is applied. Commonly used options include:

  • ITE Slurry – a fast-drying, paint-on system ideal when followed by ITE screed.

  • Tal Slurry – used with Tal self-levelling screeds for a reliable finish.

Self-levelling screed is essential over tiles. It evens out grout lines, fills dips, and eliminates lippage (height differences between tiles). Without it, grout lines can eventually echo through the vinyl.

Step 5: Surface Preparation for Best Adhesion

If tiles are shiny, sanding the surface lightly before applying slurry gives a better surface profile. This helps the slurry and screed mechanically lock into the surface, strengthening the overall system.

Step 6: Proceed with Installation

After preparation, the standard glue down system can be followed:

  1. Self-levelling screed

  2. Adhesive

  3. Vinyl installation

Keep in mind that screed over tiles tends to dry more slowly since moisture escapes only through the top surface. Plan your timeline accordingly.

A Word of Caution

In the South African market, many tiled floors are poorly installed. Even if only one or two tiles appear cracked, a reverb stick test often reveals widespread looseness due to expansion and contraction. In these cases, it’s best to remove all tiles. While this adds a day of work, it ensures your vinyl floor lasts for many years.

Final Thoughts

Installing glue down vinyl over tiles can save time and effort if the existing tiles are structurally sound and properly prepared. However, if there are concerns about loose or hollow tiles, removal is the safer long-term choice.

All the products you need — self-levelling compounds, adhesives, and vinyl flooring — are available on the Floor Mechanics website. If you’d like guidance before purchasing, our team is available via WhatsApp, email, or phone to help you make the right choice.

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ITESlurry | Bonding Primer

Price range: R1,012.44 through R1,893.35

LeveliTe F10 | Self-Levelling Screed

R323.53
-8%

Wakol D 3307 | Vinyl Adhesive

Original price was: R1,162.50.Current price is: R1,069.50.

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So what is a reducer? We use a reduce in the flooring industry to transition a floor from one height to another height. It’s called by many different names from different suppliers, but basically it is a trim that will either finish or start your floor, and it transitions from a high to a low or a low to a high.

Obviously, you can use it in reverse as you explore your flooring installation and your project. You might need to transition from a high tile or a carpet, or finishing off against a sliding door, or transitioning down to an existing old floor so you’re building up the floor level are placed in your laminate or engineered or new floor type on top of the existing.

So we need to transition down to the old floor type. So that’s where we would use this. These trims are installed in different ways depending on the type that you choose. This is a peel and stick. So you basically just peel it back and you stick it down in place. Or you can get a dowel option which basically the trim has a track down the centre and you just slide in your plug screw and you will drill a hole and fix it accordingly.

The number one rule to remember when you’re installing any trim, especially on a floating floor, meaning a floor that is just sitting on top, it’s not bonded to the substrate, is that the floor still needs to be able to move. So if we are installing against a tiled floor and we have a floating floor, the trim can be properly bonded to the tile, but it cannot be bonded to the floating floor because the floating floor still wants to be able to move around.

So we need to be very careful when we are gluing these trims down. If we gluing them down or fixing them down, that we don’t impede the natural expansion contraction movement of the floating floor if we do this, we can void our warranty and cause our floor to possibly fail. With these trims, we have quite a few different varieties.

Okay, so obviously I’ve been talking about the aluminium trim. This is the aluminium trim that can either be installed with a peel and stick or it can be installed with the dowel. The dowel system that locks in place. And these are some of the most popular types we have in the marketplace currently. From there, if we’re dealing with laminates, a very traditional format in the laminate market is these are made from medium density fibreboard or high density fibreboard.

And they are the same material used to construct laminate, but they are actually wrapped with a colour matching or complimentary decor paper with the built in anti-scratch layer. We then also have in the marketplace, and these are a little bit more custom, which these are solid trims made out of a solid hardwood or bamboo. And these are made out of the same material, but they are a lot chunkier.

And we need to be careful how they aesthetically add or potentially detract from the main floor time. The aluminium trims have come a long way in being highly anti-scratch, low profile and very easy to install.

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Why is a flooring warranty so important? So many of these products have residential and commercial warranties and there is a lot of information out there that can be quite confusing.

Firstly, it’s about the manufacturer trying to safeguard the consumer’s installation and experience of their floor, and they’ve got a very strict set of requirements of how the floor gets installed to safeguard your investment.

So whether you fill out that little registration card or not about a manufacturing defect, which they will then honor. It’s also about setting the controls that the installation is correct and they’re guiding you through the steps on how to achieve that.

Reading the installation instructions, care maintenance, is absolutely paramount in safeguarding your investment. So it’s not just about having a recourse with the manufacturer if something goes wrong, which I find as a professional in the industry is actually quite rare.

Majority of floor failures come about through incorrect maintenance and installation, and if we follow the warranty parameters, the installation parameters, we’re going to safeguard our investment. So it’s up to every consumer to make sure that they are aware of what the requirements are. And don’t just rely on that individual who’s doing the installation and laying the planks. Make sure you know what’s going on, because that’s how you get to safeguard your investment.