Garry Bateman, head of technical sales and support at Forbo Flooring Systems, explores the latest developments in adhesive-free floorcoverings, designed to allow for quick and easy office installations, resulting in minimal disruption and downtime for your clients.
When it comes to workplace refurbishments, offices that operate Monday to Friday will require flooring renovations that can be completed over the weekend. And for premises that are in use around the clock, such as shared or serviced office buildings, works may need to be carried out while the building is still occupied. Therefore, it is crucial that contractors look for options that enable rapid installations, with minimal disruption to daily operations and reduced downtime.
For this reason, recent advances in the flooring industry means that we are seeing manufacturers launch adhesive-free solutions into the market, including entrance flooring systems and interior flooring ranges in sheet, tile and plank formats. These genuinely ‘loose lay’ products are a flexible choice for offices and workplace settings as these systems don’t need to be glued-down, resulting in the production of less dust, noise and odours into the environment.
Indeed, these solutions have been designed to be installed straight onto the subfloor, or in some cases even over existing flooring, with minimal or reduced preparation. Installation times are significantly reduced, and with there being no need to apply adhesive, there is also no setting time or drying time involved so the floor is ready for use as soon as it has been fitted, meaning that contractors can sign off jobs quicker and allow the time to quote for more jobs.
All of these factors were particularly important for the refurbishment of the milling area on the ground floor of The Peninsula, a busy multi-occupancy high-rise office building located in the heart of Manchester’s Green Quarter, in which Wrennall’s Group opted for Forbo’s adhesive free vinyl, Modul’up.
Shaun Bradbury, managing director at Wrennalls Group, said: “My role in the project was to source an alternative floorcovering that could be easily and quickly applied, with minimal fuss, mess and disruption to daily operations, as the building is in-use 24 hours a day. The main challenge therefore was to find a suitable floorcovering that saved time, money and reduced potential downtime for the client.
“I recommended Forbo’s Modul’up, which is an adhesive-free sheet vinyl and part of their Fast Fit collection, as it could be installed while the premises were still in use and is the ideal solution for environments where prolonged downtime is not an option. We came in on a Saturday morning, completed the fitting over the weekend, and the floor was ready to walk on by 8am on the Monday, in time for the working week.”
Approximately 150m2 of Modul’up Compact in the Dove colourway was installed in the milling area on the ground floor of The Peninsula. The unique floorcovering offers excellent dimensional stability, requires no adhesive, tackifier or double-sided tape and is ideal for high traffic applications, as it is easy to clean and provides excellent indentation resistance. Thanks to the double structural stabilisation system, whereby two layers of fibreglass fleece are incorporated within the construction (compared to only one layer in standard vinyl), the sheet vinyl will not curl, ruck or roll once installed.
Part of Forbo’s Fast Fit collection, which encompasses a range of its adhesive-free flooring solutions, a 100m2 Fast Fit installation can save up to 2.5 days downtime if a new subfloor is not required. Clients will also be able to use the area immediately after the flooring is installed, while not being exposed to VOCs and aromatics usually associated with adhesives.
With the national shortage of qualified flooring fitters, this means that there are more jobs for clients available, and contractors that can offer solutions that enable an efficient installation can fulfil more of these demands.
