Stain on Vinyl Floor from Rubber Backed Rug: How to Hide

Find out what to do about a permanent brownish or yellowish stain created when a rubber backed carpet reacts with a vinyl floor. Learn about your options for hiding it, including installing laminate flooring right on top of the vinyl.

LESLIE: Alright, now we’ve got Tom who’s dealing with a stain on the bathroom floor. What can we do for you?

CALLER TOM: I bought a new town home and the color was a light beige, light gray kind of a stone façade or tile façade.

TOM: OK. Mm-hmm.

CALLER TOM: And I put in that bathroom a rubber-backed rug …

TOM: OK.

CALLER TOM: … and the rubber-backed rug was an older rug and it got wet and a stain occurred on that same spot where the rubber-backed backing was.

TOM: What kind of flooring do you have? Is it like a …

CALLER TOM: It’s a vinyl or a …

TOM: Yeah. Well, I knew you were going to say that. (Caller Tom chuckles) Because what’s happened here is – and I’m not so sure the water had anything to do with this; you may have discovered it when you – when it got wet and you picked it up.

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) It’s just the rug itself.

TOM: But when you put a rubber-backed carpet on top of a vinyl floor, you get a chemical reaction which is called oxidation and it usually creates a stain that tends to look kind of brownish or yellowish.

CALLER TOM: Yeah, it’s a horrible-looking, orange-brown.

TOM: Yeah. Yeah, really nasty.

CALLER TOM: Yes.

TOM: Bad news: that’s not something you can clean.

CALLER TOM: Uh-oh.

TOM: What’s happened is you’ve actually physically changed the makeup of the vinyl and that’s a permanent situation. So you have two options.

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) The only solution is a larger rug. (Leslie laughs)

TOM: (overlapping voices) Yeah, larger rug or replace the floor.

CALLER TOM: (overlapping voices, chuckles) That’s what we’ve been using and I’ve been debating whether or not to just put in another section of vinyl.

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Oh, yeah; you can do that.

TOM: Yeah, well you know what? Why don’t you think about putting in some laminate floor, Tom? That’s an easy product to install yourself, it works really well in bathrooms and you go right on top of the vinyl.

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Can put it right over the existing floor.

CALLER TOM: Oh, that’s an idea. Thanks for your help.

TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.