F BALL and Co says its newest high-performance water-mix smoothing underlayment, Stopgap 1500 AquaPro, has been used alongside the company’s Styccobond F46 pressure-sensitive vinyl adhesive to provide a time-saving solution for installing floorcoverings in Derbyshire’s largest hospital.

Derbyshire Flooring Contractors installed an eye-catching bespoke vinyl flooring design in the waiting area and connecting corridors of the children’s outpatient ward at Royal Derby Hospital, a total area of 800sq m.

The floors in the ward required refurbishing as the old floorcoverings had become worn. Work needed to be carried out in the evening, in stages, so it wouldn’t interfere with the day-to-day running of the ward.

Requiring a time-saving solution, contractors opted to use F Ball’s Stopgap 1500 AquaPro water-mix smoothing underlayment, avoiding the need to remove old adhesive residues.

Says F Ball: ‘Stopgap 1500 AquaPro uses the latest technology to offer a water-mix smoothing underlayment that can be applied over old adhesive residues, including bitumen, carpet tile tackifiers and ceramic tile adhesives. In such applications, there’s no need to prime beforehand, saving further time and expense. Fast-setting and fast-drying, it’s walk-on hard in as little as 60 minutes after application and ready to receive floorcoverings from just four hours.’

Work began with the labour-intensive task of uplifting old floorcoverings. Stopgap 1500 AquaPro was then applied at a thickness of 3mm over the subfloors to create what’s described as a perfectly smooth base for new floorcoverings.

A bespoke two-tone design, resembling a river running through the children’s ward with ‘islands’ of colour either side, was created by cutting shapes from two different colours of Polyflor Classic Mystique PUR vinyl sheet flooring, with the pieces adhered using F Ball’s Styccobond F46 pressure-sensitive adhesive.

F Ball says: ‘Styccobond F46 provides instant grab, preventing floorcoverings from sliding when placed, helping with the creation of designs and patterns. The adhesive is also formulated to minimise the incidence of trowel serrations showing through thin vinyl flooring potentially affecting the finished appearance of installations.’

Commenting on the project, Mark Grant, managing director at Derbyshire Flooring Contractors, said: ‘We like using F Ball products – they’re really good quality and reliable. Also, their tech reps are always available, if needed, to provide advice on products to use and procedures to follow throughout a project, from start to finish, including keeping us up-to-date with the latest technology that can help us achieve optimum results efficiently.

‘That’s how I found out about Stopgap 1500 AquaPro, which saved us a lot of time outside of normal working hours and enabled us to complete the work while the ward wasn’t in use, minimising disruption to services.’
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