How to glue linoleum cold welding

Despite the abundance of modern flooring options, rolled polyvinyl chloride sheets (linoleum) do not lose their position and remain very popular among ordinary people. True, not always the area of ​​the room allows you to use only one strip for flooring, then at the joints an aesthetically unattractive seam is formed. Eliminate this defect will help a special technology. We offer to figure out how to glue linoleum using cold welding without the help of a qualified specialist.

Methods for bonding linoleum

Joints are the most vulnerable and weak point of the described coverage. Sooner or later, the material at the seam starts to bulge, twist, thereby spoiling the appearance of the room and turning into a potential source of injury.

Initially, craftsmen welded strips using an ordinary soldering iron, which did not allow to obtain a perfectly even connection, and the seam itself did not always come out uniform.

Modern technologies allow welding linoleum at home without damaging the quality of the coating in two ways.

• Hot welding seams involves the use of a special building hair dryer, which acts on the coating at high temperatures (up to 650–700 ° C). Therefore, its use is permissible only for commercial polyvinyl chloride roll material.
• Cold welding of linoleum is an ideal option for domestic use.

The essence of the cold welding method

Do-it-yourself welding of linoleum using special adhesives. The method received this name because when processing the joints of the coating, the material melts, but no heating mechanisms are used.

Due to the ease of execution, even a layman can master the technique.

Simply put, the joints of the welded fabric are poured with glue, which is a PVC solvent. The coating strip melts under its influence, and when the active substance evaporates, the surface becomes monolithic.

Before you weld stacked linoleum in this way, you should evaluate its advantages and disadvantages.

The advantages of the method

The popularity of the described method compared to the treatment with a building hairdryer is due to a large number of advantages:

1. With such bonding, the seam becomes almost invisible, does not spoil the appearance of the room.
2. To process linoleum on a felt basis, there is no need to purchase or rent welding equipment or tools. The only thing to be done is to trim the edge.
3. Performing the whole range of work on cold welding, even an inexperienced master will take no more than a few hours.
4. The described method allows you to accurately dock embossed seams.

However, the technique is not suitable when laying a layer of insulation under linoleum: the joint will be clearly visible.

What glue to use?

There are several types of special formulations suitable for welding linoleum.

• Type "C" is used if the sheets of linoleum are unevenly cut, a large gap is formed between them or in the case of their long stay in a free state. The consistency of this substance is more dense, it fills the seam, melts the edges. Used as a repair compound for old coatings.
• The more liquid type “A” adhesive is used to join the new linoleum in the presence of minimal gaps. This consistency allows the substance to fuse the material, penetrating into the seam. Suitable for single-layer coating or linoleum on a foamed substrate.
• Type T glue is used for felt or polyester material. It has a pasty consistency, more difficult to use.

The main stages of work

To glue the linoleum end-to-end by cold welding, you must clearly follow the instructions.

• Roll out the coating sheets, combining the surface pattern. Stack the adjacent canvases with a small overlap (not more than 5 cm).
• Using a straight metal rail as a ruler, draw a line over the joint so that it passes through both bands.
• According to the marking made in the previous paragraph, we cut both canvases with a sharp knife. Thus, it is possible to get the most even joint.
• We connect the parts of linoleum with double-sided tape, fixing it initially on the floor. Each of the sheets is fixed separately, at the junction we pass with a roller.
• On top of the seam we glue the masking tape, which will play the role of protection for the front side.

Important! If solvent glue gets on the surface of linoleum, the composition will be impossible to remove.

• Cut the masking tape at the junction, freeing up a field for action.
• Despite the fact that the technique is called “cold”, experienced craftsmen still recommend warming up the junction. To do this, use a household iron and a flat metal plate applied to linoleum. An electrical appliance is placed on it for a short period of time.

• After the described heating, the adhesive composition is introduced into the gap between the sheets. For this, a special needle is used, which comes complete with a tube. It is necessary to squeeze out the glue evenly, controlling that it completely fills the seam. Surplus is removed with a knife.

The floor strips welded in this way have a flat surface and are almost invisible. You can see how a specialist glues seams in the video below.

Work should be done carefully and with utmost care, trying not to overdo it and not to melt the front surface of linoleum. Mastering this simple-to-execute technique will help to save on the services of professionals and give housing a well-groomed appearance.