Retail-Grocery–Floor Failure

This paper describes a failure of linoleum-tile floor covering placed on a concrete slab in a retail grocery facility. Moisture caused the failure, but different parties involved in the project postulated different sources of the moisture, and consequently, each party proposed a different assignment of blame for the failure. This paper reviews moisture movement in concrete slabs and compares the different explanations for the failure. Relationships among the different parties and the impact of these relationships on their postulated causes for failure are also examined. The most likely source of the moisture that caused the tile failure was an excessively thick sand protective layer placed on the vapor retarder. One portion of the floor slab had been left uncompleted. This exposed the sand to prolonged rain, which resulted in a reservoir of water trapped between the floor slab and vapor retarder.