I’ve pumped out miles of 3/8 in. subfloor adhesive beads from 28 – 29 oz tubes. Sometimes I’ve squeezed from a mechanical gun and other times I’ve used battery powered guns. Usually a tube would have enough glue to lay 3, maybe 4, sheets before needing to reload.

A couple years ago I tried a one-part spray foam subfloor adhesive and was impressed with the ease of use and performance so I had no misgivings using Huber’s new AdvanTech subfloor adhesive on this project. The 24 oz. canisters mount on a professional foam gun that makes it easy to adjust the flow to dispense the suggested 1/2 in. bead. And the gun gives me just enough extension to reach 48 in. up each joist.

The polyurethane adhesive foams up when it exits the gun tip but soon settles into a gel.

After it shrinks down you might be worried that there isn’t enough adhesive to do the job of bridging between the uneven surface of the joist and subfloor – but there’s no cause for concern. The adhesive swells up again slightly during the curing process and makes good contact with the surfaces.

You can’t dawdle when laying sheets over the AdvanTech adhesive. The open time is 20 minutes – and you need to have the sheet nailed off during that window. Another worker and I worked in tandem laying and fastening down the first floor sheets. I dispensed the adhesive and dropped each sheet into place on the joists. He rapped the T&G edges together and nailed down each sheet right away. We averaged a sheet every 10 minutes – well within the limit.

AdvanTech subfloor adhesive can be applied at temperatures as low as 20 degrees F and still bonds the panels to joists when the wood is wet or frozen – within some limits.

The engineered floor joists on our project are spaced 24 in. on-center and it took about 1 1/2 canisters to lay 30 sheets on the first floor deck. That matches pretty close to the 18 – 20 sheets Huber estimates one canister will cover.

Like other polyurethane spray foams, take care not to get the adhesive on you or anything you care about. Once it cures it’s a bear to clean. We made sure to alert other workers on site to stay clear when we were working above.

I paid just under $22 per canister of AdvanTech subfloor adhesive – which sounds like a lot. But compared to the 7 or 8 tubes of conventional 28 oz. subfloor adhesive that goes for about $4.50 per tube it replaces – I figure I save at least $10 for every can I use.

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