Terrapin rugs

Tuttle mat's are the only recommend mats to use on LVT due to the rubber being 100% natural rubber their for the plastersides in the rubber & the LVT done react & cause colour changing problems but..

Question is..

What is the rubber used on the back of natural ie coir seagrass ?
Have a customer just put a few bounded natural rugs down & not sure the crack ?

 

OK but that's not the question ???
Can the same colour changing accure ?

 

Can the GEL backing on naturals rugs effect LVT by discolouring like a normal rubber backed rug can ?

 

naturals tend to use more a latex base so should be ok. However , this is not always the case as latex is expensive so manufacturers add fillers to bulk out and then use Plasticizers to make them flexible .You also have as above many gel backs which contain Plasticizers .

There is not a definite answer to your question tho.

Let me try and explain why and how it works.

Plasticizers can be added to a lot of products. Mostly PVC based tho. Plasticizers are added to make products flexible or to make them soft, normally to help install.

Something you might not know is that you can smell them ! that new car smell for example, that is Plasticizers leaving the products they are in. Eventually when they finish off gassing or should i say start to slow down off gassing the products they are leaving start to become brittle, so the backing on the naturals gel back / latex backing (latex hybrid i should say), well when it starts to turn to powder in a few years time its because its lost Plasticizers , or that gel back or vinyl that starts to go hard and brittle is because its lossing its Plasticizers. Just like old cars dash boards start to crack etc but they was fine for 10 years + .

A big player in this is temperature. As i understand, for a product to start loosing its Plasticizers then we need a temp of i think its 22c. The higher the temp the faster it looses its Plasticizers, Hence cars from abroad tend to have cracked dashboards and for us, fllors seem to be effected in conservatores much faster than in someones dinning room. But near back doors etc the flooring is effected faster from Plasticize migration.

This is also why LVT / Vinyl etc will always shrink eventually. Yes we have HT and PS etc to hold them, but afetr many years of no issues they will always shrink slightly no matter what we do. End of the day the product is losing a component slowly. This is why capping strips always seem to shrink. They contain masses of Plasticizers so you can bend them !

 

Very common mate and im sure you know why the edges go before the centre !

 

Thanks for info Matt that was more or less my line of thinking. So as I have advised my customer it's Turtle mats only :thumbs

 

Good question if I do say so my self