Hello,

I work at a school in West Sussex. We are planning on restoring the old parquet flooring in our Drama Hall over the summer. Some of the tiles are missing and others are loose- the floor was originally stuck down with bitumen which is now ageing. My question is: If we restore and refinish the floor, will the finish protect the floor sufficently enough to stop the tiles form coming up again in the future (assuming that the floor is maintained yearly?).

Many thanks,

Phil

Unfortunately, the finish will do nothing to prevent the floor from lifting. This is generally caused by fluctuating humidity levels, improper maintenance, etc.
Keep elevated humidity under control, and use proper cleaning program to avoid introducing excess water to the floor.

Parquet tiles are normally glued down with adhesive.

I think he means a cutback adhesive.

Ya, thats how I read it too.

What I was getting at is, he needs some more bitumen, as they call it.

You know... that UK vs. American terminology.
Charlie, wipe your nose!

I have restored/refinished lots of old parquet floors that were "glued down" with asphalt mastic. There was a housing track not far from me built in the 50's and the entire track had concrete slab foundations and they glued 3/4" T&G oak parquet down with asphalt. Over the years, the mastic gets brittle and looses it's bond. The blocks being T&G are hard to remove without affecting the block next to it. Sometimes, if there are only a few blocks, I'll just ignore them and refinish the floors, knowing that while they're loose, they cannot go anywhere as they're locked in by the surrounding blocks of parquet. Sometimes, I've removed entire sections and/or rooms. Instead of attempting to remove the asphalt adhesive, I re-activate it by spraying it with kerosene. Modern adhesives are 1000% better but removing the old asphalt mastic is nearly impossible.

Gary Thanks for the tip. I didn't know you could reactivate it with kerosene.

I suppose.............it does have "asphalt" in its name and I've "reworked" blacktop chunks in my driveway using gasoline.