Bamboo Over Black Mastic

Q: I have wood parquet tiles that are attached to a cement slab with black mastic. The tiles are in bad shape and some “pop” as they detach and reattach when walked on. This mastic would be very difficult to remove and real mess! I wonder if I remove the tiles and cover the mastic with visqueen, could I lay a floating bamboo floor over it. Would there be any “walking noises” If I do this?
A: The short answer here is that it will make quite a bit of noise, but let’s go into some details about how to remove this problem with a bit less work.
The black looking mastics used tend to be laid with a very aggressive trowel, this means that the surface of the mastic will vary quite a bit and the floating floor (even with underlayment) will move quite a bit and cause a lot of noise.
Ideally you will want to remove the mastic, however here is a less tedious fix that can work from my good friend Gene D. our Commercial Contract Specialist. Take a filler product (such as fix-it-all) , but rather than mixing it with water, use an acrylic to mix. The reason here is the acrylic feathers much better and will make troweling the product out easier. From here take a finish trowel and begin spreading the compound at the edges, slowly troweling it out to cover the entirety of the mastic. Allow this to cure, then should you have any high spots, take something similar to a hook scraper to remove the high spots and level out the floor.
From here, check to make sure everything is level and then install your underlayment and flooring and you will have a nice smooth floor that walks well.