Over the years, one of the most successful floor covering products has been vinyl tile flooring. The tile is long wearing and attractive, particularly when clear vinyl is laminated over wood or other decorative and eye pleasing scenes and materials. A laminate containing clear vinyl over a design, with additional vinyl and an adhesive system, allows for the mounting of vinyl tile on subfloors. These tiles are ideally suited for high traffic areas. It is essential to present a very favorable impression to consumers as they enter a store, beginning with clean and polished floors. Vinyl tile is presently the best floor covering assembly when factors such as cost, permanence, cleanliness, appearance, and durability are all considered. For that reason, vinyl tile is the preferred floor for a wide variety of stores, restaurants and other establishments.
Typical vinyl tile which is commercially available is extremely difficult to remove once it has been installed. Typically, removal requires workers to dig up the floor using a chisel to remove the tile, and then apply a patching material Because the patching must dry, a 24 hour waiting period is necessary. Then the crew returns and the subflooring can be prepared and new tile installed. This is an extremely expensive process, is very unsightly, and calls for significant down time for the particular area of the flooring. Up until the present time, it has not been possible to change the design of a floor covered with vinyl tile without this expense and inconvenience.
One alternative which has been proposed is to provide exterior designs which are placed on top of already existing vinyl tile. This alternative presents several significant difficulties. First, if the design is to be permanent and have the strength, resilience and durability of vinyl tile, it must have the same permanence of mounting. Thus, when the message or design is to be changed, the same difficulties in removing an overcoating of some form is realized as would be with the tile originally on the floor area. If the surface pattern is not as durable as vinyl tile, then ordinary pedestrian traffic will disturb or destroy the coating, and at the least make it quite unsightly in a relatively short period of time. Thus, continued replacement and repair increase costs prohibitively. Finally, there is a danger that any floor covering which is significantly different in height, for example, than the adjacent area will present special risks and hazards to unsuspecting pedestrians.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a floor covering assembly which permits a defined area to be conveniently removed and replaced with alternative floor covering.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a safe, stable, highly resistant floor covering which can be removed at will and replaced with similar flooring and yet which can be left on the floor for extended periods of time without concern for durability, eye appeal or other factors.
Other objects will appear hereinafter.