Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/178290
Hard Surface Flooring 2012 CANADIAN COMPANIES ARE MAKING HARD SURFACE FLOORING LIGHTER, GREENER AND MORE EFFICIENT by Lauren Kramer I If there is one thing people notice when they enter a room, it's the looring. The surface you walk on re lects your personal style, while merging function and form. Historically, the process of laying hard surface looring has been an arduous job illed with environmentally unfriendly chemicals and heavy lifting. Today, however, Canadian companies are making it lighter, greener and more ef icient with a wave of improved products. Durability and Speed as you don't have to bring in heavy, cumbersome equipment to remove old adhesives," he says. Mapei has also introduced pouches with latex that can be used to re ill old paint buckets so they aren't thrown into land ills. "We're trying to do our part to address environmentally sensitive issues," Hebert says. "The pouches, a fraction of the packaging size of a bucket, act as a re ill. They're currently available in four of our most popular products. If they catch on, we'll expand the line." Last year, Hamel, Minnesota-based Maxxon Corporation, a provider of loor underlayments and sound-deadening systems, launched two innovative sound control mats. Acousti-Mat® SD was designed to it the lutes of 9/16-inch to 2.5-inch o.c. 22 gauge corrugated steel decking, saving time and money by eliminating the need for two pours. Coupled with a Maxxon Underlayment, Acousti-Mat SD achieves superior sound control and a strong, smooth surface to receive virtually any inished loor. Acousti-Mat® I, is a high-quality sound-control mat that needs only a three-quarter-inch Maxxon Underlayment pour depth. It helps meet the International Building Code's sound rating requirements and is listed in over 100 UL Fire Rated Designs. Acousti-Mat I increases IIC levels by eight to 10 points in wood-frame construction. Both Acousti-Mat SD and AcoustiMat I are made with 40 per cent recycled content and meet the Greenguard Select Certi ication SM requirements. Speed and durability are two qualities important to customHold The Screed ers laying down hard surface looring, and two new products Schluter Systems Canada introduced the Bekotec family group from Mapei have both of these covered. One is a grout additive more than 10 years ago but has expanded from just one verthat increases stain resistance. sion to four variations, ranging in thickness from eight milli"Traditionally, people will grout and clean as they go, or metres to 50. Bekotec is a modular screed system that offers a look for some kind of grout sealer or protection after they've more controlled curing process by breaking up the screed into grouted," says Pierre Hebert, technical services manager. "Our small modules of approximately 112 by 112 millimetres (4.5 new product mixes into the grout as it is applied, reducing the by 4.5 inches). "It's used in areas where there may be hydronic grout's porosity. Sure, you still have to clean your loor, but it radiant heat, but it's also useful for sound control situations, gives you time to wipe common stains as they're spilled, so and it reduces the amount of weight of whatever screed is they don't get into the grout. It's something installers can offer being used," explains Dale Kempster, technical director. their customers so they have a more stain-resistant product." A studded polystyrene panel, Bekotec is laid onto a conThe company's second new product, UltraFlex FLD Rapid, crete slab or plywood sub loor in commercial or residential is a rapid-setting tile mortar designed speci ically for large-format tiles, permitting grouting three to four hours after installation. "It's useful for rapid installations like shopping malls," says Hebert. Without the UltraFlex FLD Rapid, the slump factor can be an issue. Installers will use a thicker mortar to compensate for the unevenness of a surface loor, only to ind the large surface tiles slumping overnight, before they can be grouted. "The UltraFlex has a nonslump characteristic so you can apply it in a thick layer and still ind there's no slump," Hebert explains. The process of laying hard surface looring often calls for removing the existing looring. If that looring contained water-based resin adhesives, cumbersome mechanical equipment was required to remove it. Mapei has introduced an alternative in the form of three products used in succession. The irst is a water-based adhesive remover designed to remove most water-based adhesives quickly. A water-based stripping solution is applied to prepare nonporous concrete or chemically contaminated concrete. Finally, a low-viscosity epoxy treatment is applied to prepare the concrete slabs for looring installaECOLLECTION series from Brazil. These rectified glazed porcelain eight-by-48-inch tiles mimic tions. "It's great in a small of ice space wood floorboards. Imported by Ceragres Tile Group. Hard Surface Flooring p.20-25Hard surface.indd 21 APRIL 2012 /21 3/26/12 2:18:53 PM