In The Groove

As many of you know, Altro has recently launched the new Timbersafe wood-look safety flooring and sales are going really well for this innovative, exciting product. It incorporates Altro’s Maxis technology, which makes for easier maintenance and so has been snapped up by schools and hospitals.

The Altro technical hotline, however, has received several calls relating to the hot welding of both Timbersafe and other Maxis products. It seems that one or two contractors have had some problems in welding the new products, so just to nip this issue in the bud I thought I’d offer a bit of helpful advice.

The patented polymer technology that gives Maxis its dirt shedding properties does have a small effect on the melting point of the flooring and some users have reported easier welding at slightly higher temperatures.  Others have seen no difference – I guess it depends on how individual welding guns behave on a particular setting.

Gun temperature settings are not precisely calibrated and site conditions can have their influence too, so it always good practice to check out gun temperatures etc., by test welding a piece of scrap material before starting the job earnest.  This simple policy will go a long way towards avoiding week joints caused by welding at too low temperatures or scorching by using too much heat – and expensive customer complaints and call-backs to rectify.

As you will know, the key to successful hot welding is to prepare the joint properly. This will avoid contamination and adhesive residue entering the joint, prior to welding, which will prevent effective fusing of the welding material to the flooring.

An adequate channel or groove should be made to allow the hot welding rod to form the strongest possible bond with the floor covering.

Failure to groove deep enough on conventional PVC flooring or Maxis results in a weak joint and will undoubtedly lead to a forced replacement at some point in the future.

So the message is simple - form the groove in accordance with good floor laying practice, and welding Altro Maxis will be no different than hot welding any other PVC flooring.

Mitres both internal and external should also be grooved prior to welding to achieve maximum strength and a long lasting installation.

On another note, I’ve just been to see a great installation in a large sports centre in the frozen north. The contractor had made a great job of the sprint track, which features Altro’s 10mm rubber.

All the safety flooring had been well laid  and coved and looked excellent. Right in the middle of the main reception area, they had incorporated a complicated motif with Latin phrases and a heraldic design, which had been cut by water jet and must have looked superb on installation.

The reception area had been fixed in acrylic adhesive, including the design.  Here lies the problem.  The maintenance carried out daily is to wet scrub the whole floor with an industrial scrubber dryer but because the design could not be welded due to its complexity, moisture had penetrated below the flooring and caused the adhesive to fail.

Already, the unicorn’s horn and part of the lion’s mane, not to mention several letters from the Latin proclamation, have been sucked out and have disappeared up the spout of the scrubber dryer never to be seen again.

So a salient lesson for us all is to fix any such works of art in a water resistant adhesive to avoid disaster.

“Nil desperandum.”

This article first appeared in the February 2007 edition of the CFJ.