DriTac Flooring Products

The flooring adhesive industry isn’t the first that comes to mind when most people think of high-tech, innovative and environmentally friendly industries. DriTac seeks to change that.

The Clifton, New Jersey-based business manufactures adhesives to install wood and resilient flooring for residential and commercial applications such as skyscrapers, hotels, colleges, shopping centers and other buildings nationwide.

DriTac offers a full line of flooring adhesives and installation systems that tout zero VOCs, zero solvents and have been independently tested and certified by the Carpet and Rug Institute’s Green Label Plus program for indoor air quality.

Found in many conventional flooring adhesives, VOCs and solvents have adverse human and environmental health effects. Naturally, green building leaders like the U.S. Green Building Council award-winning builders who opt against using them, but that requires chasing down products made without them, which can be sticky. So, when developing new products, DriTac says it’s committed to producing VOC-free and solvent-free products.

The company is proud of that green commitment, of its ability to innovate and of the fact that DriTac is owned and operated in the U.S.—something few of its competitors can boast, says Myrna Block, the company’s executive vice president.

Rubber roots anchor DriTac’s green foundation

DriTac has been producing flooring adhesives since 1956, when it launched its original formula, DriTac 6200. Unlike traditional wet-lay, moisture-reactive technologies, DriTac 6200 is pressure sensitive with a long open time, allowing installers to increase productivity.

Sixty years after its inception, DriTac 6200 is still one of the company’s core products.

It can be used beneath both wood and resilient flooring, which is a catch-all industry term for flooring that is neither soft like carpet nor hard like wood and is often made with vinyl. Wood and resilient flooring make up the fastest-growing segments of the flooring industry.

Sixty years after its inception, DriTac 6200 is still one of the company’s core products. It’s amassed a loyal following, and installers often tell DriTac they won’t use anything else.

Thanks to DriTac 6200, the company has offered environmentally-friendly products from the start. DriTac 6200 is VOC-compliant and contains natural rubber latex, a rapidly renewable and sustainable raw material that contributes to LEED credits.

 Over the course of several decades, DriTac’s products have become even more environmentally friendly. To DriTac, “green” now means VOC- and solvent-free, and the company strives to maintain this standard as often as possible.

“‘Green’ is defined by many different people, many different ways,” John Lio, vice president of marketing says. “For us, our definition is zero VOC, zero solvent. ‘Zero’ reflects the lowest emitting VOC products in the marketplace.”

Two of DriTac’s latest green products include DriTac 7800 Supreme Green, a 5-in-1 sound and moisture control wood flooring adhesive, and DriTac 5900 MegaBond, intended for installing resilient flooring. Both are free of VOCs and solvents, contribute to LEED credits and have been certified by the independent, third-party Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) for indoor air quality.

All-in-one: adhesion, sound mitigation and moisture control

While DriTac 7800 and DriTac 5900 speak to the company’s green approach, they also demonstrate a commitment to innovation.

The company says that commitment is nothing new. In 2008, DriTac released DriTac 1001 All-in-One, the wood flooring adhesive industry’s first urethane-based adhesive providing sound mitigation, moisture control and crack suppression in one application. Until that point, installers would had to apply a layer of adhesive, a sound and moisture barrier and another layer of adhesive before finally laying the floor.

“DriTac 1001 All-in-One helped create a very high demand for this type of single-component, multi-solution wood flooring adhesive,” says Chuck Hall, DriTac’s senior vice president of sales.

DriTac has continued to bring that level of innovation to products like DriTac 7800 and DriTac 7700 Easy Clean, both of which offer easy-clean formulas, along with the all-in-one features: sound and moisture control, crack suppression, old cut-back adhesive residue isolation and,  of course, flooring adhesive in one application.

Sticking with tradition

While many of DriTac’s customers appreciate the all-in-one approach, some installers still insist on using a three-step approach—a thin layer of foam that provides sound and moisture control, also known as flooring underlayment, sandwiched between two layers of adhesive.

“Like any other market, there’s still a certain segment of the industry that wants to stick with time-tested solutions that have worked for them in the past,” Lio says.

To keep those clients happy, while still pushing the industry toward more environmentally-friendly products, DriTac has launched two flooring underlayment products, DriTac 8302 Double Impact for hardwood and laminate flooring and DriTac 8301 Impact for resilient flooring. They can be used with DriTac’s flooring adhesives to offer a fully guaranteed system from one trusted source and, like the company’s other green products, the new flooring underlayment products are free of VOCs and solvents.

“It’s important to us that we understand the requirements of our customers and offer them problem-solving flooring installation solutions that allow them to sleep better at night,” Block says.