Tried tack strip on concrete without glue last month in Phoenix, and I'm still pulling up loose ends
Last month I took a job in Phoenix, a 450 sq ft room with a concrete slab, and I figured I would save time by skipping the adhesive and just shooting the tack strip down with a ramset. I got it all laid in about 40 minutes and felt pretty good about myself. Two weeks later the customer called and said the carpet was rippling near the walls, and when I pulled it back, half the strip had popped loose from the slab. The ramset pins just did not hold in that old dusty concrete, and I had to go back and redo the whole thing with construction adhesive, which added 3 extra hours and a second trip. I learned that on slab jobs, glue is not optional no matter how good the pins feel going in. How do you all handle dusty or crumbly slabs, do you grind first or just use extra adhesive?