A hallway seam that split fast has me arguing with myself over the reason

I put down a seam in a client's main walkway and it separated within a week. One buddy says I cut the pieces too tight, while another claims the adhesive I picked just didn't hold up in that spot. Now I'm going back and forth on which error was the real problem. What's your take when a seam fails early?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_harper1mo ago

Feel you on that... had a seam split on me last year and I swear it was both. Cut it tight for a clean look but the glue just gave up in a high traffic spot.

oliver9651mo ago

Watched a contractor friend fix a similar issue in a gym lobby. He said high traffic spots need glue that stays flexible after it dries, not just the strongest hold. Regular adhesive gets stiff and cracks when the floor shifts underfoot. He switched to a silicone based product for those areas and it held up better. Kind of obvious once you see it fail a few times.

evan511mo ago

Man, that reminds me of my buddy's nightmare on a big office job. He swore he measured the hallway planks perfectly, but the stuff he used to stick them down just wasn't right for all that foot traffic. Saw it myself a month later, the seam had opened up enough to catch a shoe. He ended up redoing the whole section with a different adhesive and leaving a bigger gap.