Endangered Species: Rhinofloor & Armstrong To Close

Save the rhino! No, this is not a sudden departure into protecting those mighty beasts……sadly it is to post about the impending demise of Armstrong’s domestic vinyl production on Teesside. Note that this closure affects the domestic side of their business only.

It really will be a hammer blow to a part of the country that can ill-afford the loss of 163 jobs. It’s pretty clear that Armstrong have struggled to cope with the new generation of vinyl competition from Europe, of which Leoline has been the spearhead.

It does not surprise me to hear this news, though it does sadden me. To think that what is by far the most recognised vinyl brand, Rhinofloor, will no longer be available is quite shocking. Realistically it is pretty much the only brand people ever seem to ask for in this shop – in recent times however, they often come in talking about Rhinofloor and leave the shop having bought Leoline – sad but true.

A lack of true innovatition and creativity, as well as some very strange pricing structures have contributed to their demise as much as anything else in my book. I actually dismantled one of their stands today (coincidentally) to make way for something else that will sell a lot more than that and the significance of what I had been planning for a couple of weeks sunk in. If I’m not getting results from their stand, then I’m sure I’m not alone.

The end of an era and another British manufacturer goes to the wall. No bail outs from the goevernment to the flooring trade though, we save those for reckless bankers……

(Originally posted on the 25th August 2010)

Altro Invent Retailer’s Dream Safety Floor

Sometimes sales reps will wind we retailers up a little with an amusing anecdote, a joke straight out of a 1978 edition of ‘The Comedians’ or even a tie that their wife bought them for their birthday. However, every now and then they will try to pull your leg about a product.

When I saw Altro’s new safety floor, Xpresslay TM, I was definitely suspecting the worst…..

Very briefly, if you don’t already know, commercial safety floor has to be fully adhered to a prepared subfloor. Damp measurements need to be taken and great care must be taken with the preparatory work. The vast majority of problems on jobs like this seem to occur because of poor, or non-existent preparation.

What Altro have come with here is a new safety floor that does not have to be fully adhered in the traditional way. Instead the idea is that you use Altro’s double sided tape around the seams and perimeter to stick it down….and it works! You would still need to fully stick it if very heavy items were to be rolled across it for example, but generally speaking, taping will work on the majority of applications.

More intriguingly though, Altro have developed a product here that can be fitted on top of old vinyl floors, so you don’t need to hack up the old flooring. This is because there can of course be no ‘plasticiser migration’ as they call it. There is no adhesive used that will interact with the surface of the old tiles – genius!

Also you can fit it on top of underfloor heating without even turning it off and also you can begin to weld it immediately. Add to that the fact that you can fit this product on fresh concrete that has a RH (relative humidity) of up to 97% and you have a wonderfully flexible solution that will solve a lot of problems quickly and easily.

Let’s step back from the technical stuff for a moment though and think about what this means. To me personally, it is a great addition because we aren’t specialist safety floor/commercial contractors – we get a handful of these jobs every now and then and this product will now be our first choice to show customers.

It means we don’t have to worry about costly and time-consuming preparation, moisture testing and it is quicker for us to install, so our fitters are tied up for less time. All this will translate into a better experience for our customer and a more competitive finished price. Sure, there are many cheaper safety floors around, but Xpresslay TM is not especially expensive by industry standards and its features and benefits make up for any price differential. If a comparable safety floor is £3 per square metre less, then that is going to be easily eaten up (and a lot more) in prep work. Xpresslay TM wins hands down for me.

For the specialists, it will be one of many solutions they offer, but to the many many retailers who do the odd job in safety floor, this is a dream product. Full marks to Altro.

(Originally posted on the 24th July 2010)

Ceramitex Vinyl by Gerflor

Gerflor make a lot of their ‘polyester textile backing’ on their range of vinyl flooring. They claim that, among other things, it can be laid on top of virtually any kind of subfloor without the need for the usual preparation. That’s a bold claim and I must confess that we do sell it where the subfloor is a little awry and the customer does not want the hassle and the expense of screeding or plywooding beforehand. However, I do think that it is important to explain to the customer that the job may well not be ‘perfect’.

The latest range I have come across is ‘Ceramitex’. As the name suggests, it is a tile based selection available either 2m, 3m or 4m wide and with GripX slip-resistance, felt-backing and comes 2.0mm thick with a wear layer of 0.20mm.

Ceramitex Borie Dark Design

I do think that the designs stand up quite well and as seen below, they offer a good range of contemporary designs. We are certainly selling more tile than wood design now in vinyl and this is probably borne out by the amount of new tile ranges we are seeing.

Ceramitex Designs in Full

This should be a steady seller and while it is not at the top end of vinyl as regards quality, the felt-backing may well get you out of a hole, so it’s worth considering if your subfloor is slightly uneven. If it’s more than slightly dodgy then please rectify that before wasting your money on a vinyl floor.

This should go out at between £12 and £16 per square metre. Sadly not available as of yet on yourfloors, but your local supplier who deals with The Headlam Group will be able to supply it easily enough.

(Originally posted on 25th July 2009)

Tarkett Spectrum: New Safety Floor Tile

I won’t pretend that commercial and contract flooring is my forte, but as a small retailer we do our fair share of jobs in commercial premises and they are always varied and bring a different set of challenges to our usual domestic work.

Recently we were asked to fit a small area of around 30 square metres in a safety floor. As chance would have it I was leafing through a trade magazine (yes, even this trade has dedicated magazines for it), when I noticed an ad for a new idea – a safety floor in tile form. There are several huge advantages to this to my mind. Firstly you don’t need to weld, saving time, hassle and expense. Secondly the transportation of these things is simple – rolls of safety floor are heavy and frequently need to go into fairly inaccessible areas, so another big thumbs up for these and thirdly, the quality of the tiles themselves is excellent. Tarkett’s manufacturing is definitely something we can trust and rely upon for stock in depth and a high level of quality control.

When you handle a tile you immediately notice just how pliable and easy to work with this stuff is. When you compare it with its closest roll competition from Polyflor and Altro, it seems to win out in that regard.

It has an impressive colour palette (not all colours are available in tile format) and of course meets all the relevant standards from use in commercial areas where occassional spillages may occur. This is not wet room flooring, but would be fine for example in a toilet of a bar or restaurant or similar. The tile format also enables the possibility of mixing colours easily and quickly to create patterned effects. Tarkett demonstrate this effectively with this image:

Innovation in Safety Floor

Keep an eye out for it, I think it’s going to be a big seller.

(Originally posted on 16th June 2009)

More Polystyl Vinyls

Following on from the ‘Colours of Today’ post the of last week, I have now got my hands on a full set of new Polystyl vinyl samples. Here is how they look:

Display Stand

Origin:This is Polystyl’s entry level product and is the only one of the ranges of theirs I’ve seen that does not feature their RMAX surface coating. That being said, it does still carry R10 slip-resistance, which is fine for domestic vinyl and will definitely mean less possibility of slipping.

On top of that the other point worth noting is that its warranty from Polystyl is significantly less than the others, coming in at ‘just’ 5 years. The vinyl itself is 2.6mm thick, so respectable enough from that point of view and the wear layer is 0.2mm, which seems now to be about standard at budget level.

Designs are typical fare- several wood planks, some tiles and so on – nothing to write home about here and it’s not winning any design awards, but it does a job at a price.

Elegant:Going up the tree quite a few branches, we see Elegant, which does feature Polystyl’s RMAX coating, which they claim is tougher and stands up to heavier wear. Hence you see the 15 year warranty on this product. Again this is R10 slip-resistant, which you would certainly expect from a high-end vinyl.

Gibraltar Black

It is beefed up to a chunky-ish 3mm total thickness and the wear layer here is a pretty impressive 0.3mm. This may not sound much better than Origin’s 0.2mm, but it does make a significant difference in the long run.

Designs are again pretty disappointing – just the usual suspects prevail again here and the only mildly interesting design is a large intricate parquet wood design. As Roy Walker would say, “It’s good but it’s not right!” It seems to me as if Polystyl’s creative juices were all sapped by Colours of Today and that’s a shame.

Elite:This one is very similar to Elegant and features both RMAX and R10 slip-resistance, yet somehow manages just a 10 year warranty (don’t ask me why. The gauge is again 3.0mm and 0.3mm wear layer.

Stromboli Bronze

Design is a lot better here though. We see some gorgeous plain metallic designs – the bronze being particularly nice and even the wood plank designs seem to incorporate this metallic theme pleasingly. It reminds me of some of Rhinofloor’s metallic stuff from a year or two back, but it looks more impressive to my eyes. Intriguingly some of the wood plank designs in my sample book run the wrong way and before I sell any of this I need to make sure which way the planks run. I have never seen a vinyl sample book like this before – most run the ‘right’ way, but a couple run the wrong way – why would they do that?

Agora:Jumps on the felt-backed vinyl bandwagon, which Leolan and Gerflor have exploited so well recently. Felt back vinyls seem to go to well with customers and you can definitely get away with some minor subfloor imperfections with them – it’s not a panacea, but it can get you out of a fix I think.

Agora has a 15 year warranty, RMAX and R10 and comes in at 2.8mm thick and has a wear layer 0.35mm thick - the highest within this range. It’s a good option, but once again the designs are somewhat bland.

Felt Back Vinyl (Better images to follow)

(Originally posted on 21st April 2009)

New Polystyl Vinyl: Colours of Today

Just received a new sample book for a new Polystyl vinyl called ‘Colours of Today’.

It contains mainly abstract and modern designs and includes a weird ‘wine cork’ design called Vino Natural:

There are also metallic wood designs, but another eye-catcher within this range is definitely the Pavia design. A small flowery mosaic, shown here in black and white colourway:

We’ll be selling this at £14.99m and I think it will sell okay, but not massively. It bears all the hallmarks of a range where people look at it, marvel at it and then decide to take the safe option instead.

(Originally posted 3rd April 2009)

New Leolan Vinyl – Stones SR

I’ve just got hold of a new range from Leolan that we buy via Headlam Group – Stones SR.

It’s pretty impressive and at the top end of their range with its 15 year guarantee. There are some old favourite designs there, like the ever popular Mikado 35, but they have added some interesting new ones as tile designs seem to become more popular than ever.

They also have the small mosaic, Orvieto design in there but also some larger ones along the lines of Rhinofloor’s Antique Tiles range.

You’ll probably sell it at between £19-£25 per metre, but I won’t give out trade prices on here. It isn’t currently on Yourfloors, but it will be in time I’m certain. If your rep offers you a sample book I’d take it and I daresay it will be updated onto the Leolan stands pretty soon.

(Originally posted 31st March 2009)