Hey Guys,

As you may know, I do not do a lot of glue downs. I have done many over the years but not as much as compared to some of you. So, what I'm looking at is gluing down a Mannington 3/8" engineered 5 ply. I do NOT want to use a moisture cure urethane. So, Bostik's and Mannington's adhesive's are OUT. I am gluing to concrete. I know I risk the warranty by not using Mannington adhesive. I just cannot afford their high prices nor do I want to spend many hours cleaning the floor. The money's not there. So, I'm looking at an acrylic urethane I am assuming. Recommendations please. Taylor is one. And it's good. But pricing has gotten ridiculous at my distributor. There is a brand called Roberts with an acrylic urethane. As some of you may know, Roberts is a national flooring tool and supply manufacturer. I'm wondering if Bruce or Henry's has something that will work as well. Or Mapei or some other "off brand". My customer has champagne taste on a beer budget. So I need to save as much moola as possible. Any ideas? Gracias. Gary

I used to love the DriTac 6200. You'll never get any popping sounds or hollow spots with that stuff. It's water based and needs time to flash but the cost is half of the urethanes maybe more. Never liked that acryclic stuff, boards would sometimes slide out of place overnight on the end joints, but that was eight years ago.

Gary, I've only used urethane adhesives so i can't offer any first hand advice. A long time ago I was using Bruce Equalizer adhesive and the price was not real bad. I think Bostik's BST is the same thing.

My last glue down I installed I used Mapei 990 and clean up was a breeze... too pricey for what you are looking for.

My recommendation would be the Taylor 2071, but your saying it is getting expensive. The last 4 gallons I bought was $72. The last Mapei 980 I bought was $131 for 5 gallons.

Mohawk has an acrylic, I have used, but I have no idea of cost.

If you use the Roberts, let it flash off for a long time. It has a lot of moisture in it, and end peaking will occur, if you go in too wet.

We exclusively use moisture cure urethane adhesives now, but prior to that DriTac was what we would use.
Think I would stay away from the acrylics.

I've used some of these adhesives before. DriTac a couple of times but around here, they do not have distribution anymore. The Taylor is good. I used it on a Next Step floor a few times without issue. But now, the distributor wants $115.00 for 4 gal pail ? Might as well get Bostik's BST. I've used acrylics with engineered before. And while they do have water in them, if you use the right one, they haven't harmed the floors. I found out Roberts doesn't recommend their adhesive with a plank over 4" in width. Mine is 5", so the Roberts is out. Henry's used to have a pretty good acrylic I used on a Mannington floor years ago. It worked fine. These are just two bedrooms I'm doing. Small easy floor I don't want to turn into some huge laborious clean up problem. Regardless of how careful I am, mc urethanes get on the floor and even with diligent clean up while you go, there is ALWAYS something left behind to clean up afterwards. And the cleanup is always more labor intensive then with acrylics. Actually, the adhesives I have had the MOST problems with ( clean-up, bond, working time, grab, etc. ) was Bostik's Best. The adhesive that always worked the best for me was Franklin 911, an old chlorinated solvent adhesive. It was the same as Bruce LP. But it hasn't been used in over 10 years. I know the problem with some acrylics is the short working time PLUS the water in the glue. I thank you all for you recommendations. I'll see what I can get locally.