Navigating Bitumen for a Successful Glue Down Vinyl Installation – When Parquet Flooring’s Past Haunts the Present

Bitumen. It’s the ghost of floor installations past—especially in older South African homes with a legacy of parquet flooring, known locally as ‘blokkies’ flooring. At Floor Mechanics, we recently tackled a prime example of how this outdated adhesive method can derail even the best-laid renovation plans without the right expertise.

The Surprise Below: Residual Bitumen from Old Parquet Flooring

Our team was contracted for a full-home floor installation of luxury vinyl planks (LVP), using a glue down vinyl method. The existing 1980s carpet was to be removed, and the substrate prepped for the new finish.

Once the carpet was lifted, we discovered extensive bitumen contamination throughout the substrate. This black, oily residue was the remnant of a previous parquet flooring installation—most likely Zimbabwean Teak tiles—glued down decades ago using bitumen, a common practice in the Western Cape.

Bitumen was once prized for its strength and durability as an adhesive. But in today’s flooring world, it’s a major headache, especially given that there are more (better) solutions. Especially when preparing a surface for modern glue down vinyl flooring, bitumen can severely interfere with the bonding of primers, screeds, and adhesives.

The Risk: Why Bitumen is a Problem for Floor Installation

Standard primers and self-leveling screeds don’t adhere well to bitumen-contaminated surfaces. Worse, some installers try shortcuts—chipping at the surface to give new materials something to grip. We’ve seen the aftermath of these shortcuts: delaminated floors, adhesive failures, and expensive repairs.

That’s why knowing how to remove bitumen or how to treat it properly is critical to a successful and lasting floor installation. And if you have a blokkies floor, be prepared to deal with some remedial and extra cost that will most likely be required.

Our Solution: Grinding and Priming for Long-Term Stability

There are two ways you can approach a bitumen issue. The first is to mechanically grind it all off using a scarifier and other such tools. This is intense and time-consuming, yet once done resets the datum and you would proceed with screed prep as usual.

The second option, our preferred approach, is mechanical grinding coupled with a primer. You remove the top layer of bitumen contamination down to the stained but sound topping beneath. You want to get rid of the crumbly residue. If the substrate remains structurally stable, you don’t need to remove the topping entirely.

Next, you apply Tal Bitumen Primer—a two-part, hand-troweled product specifically engineered to bond cementitious surfaces contaminated with bitumen. While it adds cost to the preparation phase, it guarantees long-term success for the installation.

Once the primer sets, you finish the floor preparation with a standard self-leveling screed, creating the perfect base for your glue down vinyl planks.

Key Insight: Shortcuts Come Back to Bite

When it comes to parquet flooring and bitumen, the correct approach with the right tools and products will save you time and money down the line. For clients, your flooring investment will last into the future. For installers, your reputation and risk can be protected. Just take a look at the short video clip below on another project recently where a previous vinyl installation was done over bitumen without the right approach, and our client had to pay the price. Check out how that screed has completely delaminated from the bitumen layer!

We see this time and again, so please approach this flooring type well informed and ready to do the right thing.