What Did The Romans Ever Do For Us?

Look up the meaning of the word ‘profile’ in the dictionary and it’ll give you any number of definitions from “the outline of a person’s face” to “a vertical section of the earth’s crust”. The word apparently originates from ‘filum’, the Latin word for thread, and from the Italian ‘profilare’, meaning to sketch lightly. I appreciate that the leap from the language of ancient Rome to modern day flooring installations is a large one. Quite how the term has come to mean a manmade flooring accessory is not immediately clear, unless you set your mind to thinking of edging. But where would we in the flooring industry be without them?

Like the word itself, flooring profiles have developed considerably over the years. Aluminium nosings and stair edgings, which some would term profiles, have been around for a very long time, although probably not from a time when Latin was widely used. However, I’ve been in the trade long enough to remember a time when PVC accessories were virtually unheard of. Contemporary floor coverings were generally fitted wall to wall, unless it became necessary to overlay an existing concrete, terrazzo or asphalt floor that already incorporated an in situ cove. In these circumstances, sheet PVC, rubber flooring and occasionally tiles were taken up to the ready made cove detail.

Eventually, presumably due to the desire to eliminate the dirt trap at the junction of wall and floor and to make hospitals more hygienic places, Ministry of Health (MOH) coving became available along with a cheaper alternative known as sit on coving. Made from good old PVC, this was available in black only so you couldn’t see the dirt. A step in the right direction, but by no means a perfect solution by today’s standards.

By the start of the 1970s, the site formed coving of PVC and rubber sheet flooring was becoming more common and in my early days with Altro much of our work was carried out this way. Due to the lack of a suitable off the shelf alternative, all our cove forming took place using latex screed mixed a little bit wetter than semi dry (very scientific). Installers used a coving trowel if they had one, or more likely a bottle or can the approximate radius of the required cove.

The drawback with forming the cove wet is obvious, as it had to be left overnight to cure; every job took at least two days irrespective of the size. Then magically and seemingly out of the blue, PVC extruded cove former arrived on the scene, thanks to innovative manufacturers such as Altro, and this put an end to all the early finishes we used to have whilst waiting for the old latex version to dry.

Nowadays it seems there’s a plastic profile for every eventuality, which must make the contractors’ job easier. At the last count, Altro were marketing around 20 PVC profiles for various flooring scenarios, in addition to a range of walling accessories used with our Altro Whiterock wall cladding. These products are designed to make it easy for contractors to achieve a high performance, and attractive finish. It’s certainly a far cry from the dark ages of my early days in the industry.

This article first appeared in the March 2008 edition of the CFJ.