Hi All,

I'm a General Contractor, never installed hardwoods before, and am currently putting 700 sf of prefinished 3/4" x 2.25" oak in my own place. Part of the project is a stairway and I'm using stair bullnose moulding and flooring boards for the treads/risers. It is a ways to the nearest flooring store so I purchased urethane adhesive (Roberts R1509) at Home Depot ($129 for 4 gallons). It says it is specifically rated for 3/4 hardwood/bamboo. Anyway, I installed the first 3 treads this afternoon and it looks to me like the urethane is expanding as it cures. It is not much but it is enough to cause a little buckling and some oozing from underneath the bullnose.

I'm wondering if this is typical and how it can be prevented. I really don't want to flash the stuff off because I can't imagine setting the boards in adhesive, pulling them, and resetting them without making a huge mess. I trowelled the urethane per the manufacturers instructions with a 1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4 trowel and set the boards immediately.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

SteveW

When your troweling the substrate should be clearly visable where the teeth hit. Otherwise your troweling wrong and leaving to much adhesive. I think this job is clearly out of your comfort zone for a GC.

I'm pretty sure I'm not putting too much down. I do a lot of tile work and if anything I'm not leaving enough for the trowell notch size.

Have you heard of expansion problems with these urethane adhesives?

Steve

I agree with Stephen...And your using too much adhesive. Adhesive doesn't "ooze" unless your spreading it on too heavy. If your seeing excessive movement of the wood it's probably from the wood hydraulicing..from trowelling out a pool of adhesive. Adhesive expansion isn't gonna happen. And not even a valid theory on a section the size of a tred.