Floor Technical Blogs

A heat-welded seam turns two rolls into one continuous sheet. Done well, the weld rod fuses with both sheet edges and the joint is as strong and as cleanable as the body of the floor. Done badly, the seam is where dirt lodges, where disinfectant pools, and where the floor starts to fail.

Three settings do most of the work. Groove depth: the router must reach the sheet body but not cut through the backing — about two-thirds of sheet thickness. Nozzle temperature: set for the rod material, usually around 350–400 °C for PVC rod, and constant along the weld. Speed: slow enough for full fusion, fast enough to avoid scorching — a well-made weld shows a small, even bead on both edges that trims off in two passes.

Test the weld before moving on: nick the cooled seam and pull. A good weld tears the sheet, not the joint. If it opens cleanly along the weld line, re-weld that section — no exceptions in hygiene-critical areas.

When a floor lifts, the adhesive gets blamed first. In practice the adhesive is rarely the cause: moisture leaving the slab, a dusty or weak surface, or a smoothing compound applied over a sealed slab is behind most bond failures we inspect.

Test rather than assume. CM method for cementitious screeds: below 2.5% before a moisture-sensitive adhesive; anhydrite screeds, around 0.5%; heated screeds are tighter still. RH probes give a percentage — 75% is the usual ceiling. Below-grade slabs need a surface damp-proof membrane regardless of the reading, because the moisture will keep arriving.

Record the readings, the instrument and the location, and keep them with the project file. When a dispute arrives months later, a dated moisture record is the difference between a warranty claim and an argument.

A PUR (polyurethane) treatment is a factory-applied cross-linked surface layer. It fills the micro-texture of the wear layer, so dirt sits on top instead of locking in, and routine cleaning needs water and a neutral detergent rather than polishing cycles.

It is a treatment, not armour. Abrasive pads, high-alkaline strippers and gritty dust will wear it faster than foot traffic ever will — which is why the first weeks after installation matter more than the first years: construction dust must be vacuumed, not swept dry, and never dry-buff a floor that has not been cleaned.

In heavy-traffic areas, plan a maintenance emulsion once or twice a year. It renovates the surface, keeps cleaning fast, and delays the day the floor needs a full restoration.

A square junction between floor and wall collects soil at the corner and gives a mop nothing to work with. Coving the sheet 100 mm up the wall removes the corner entirely: the surface that gets cleaned continues vertically, with no gap and no sealant line to maintain.

Three rules from site. Use a cove former, never free-bend the sheet — a forced bend holds stress and lifts later. Set the former before the sheet, level and fixed, or the cove line will wander. And continue the cove around corners and door frames — a cove that stops at an internal angle defeats most of its purpose.

Specify the height on the drawing, not on site: 100 mm is standard in wards and kitchens, 200 mm in wet rooms where walls get hosed.

Wear layer is transparent vinyl above the print film, and it is the single biggest driver of price per square metre. The instinct is to pick one spec for the whole building. That overbuys the quiet rooms and underspecifies the corridor.

Split the building by traffic instead. A secondary school might run 2.0 mm homogeneous in corridors and the canteen, 0.7 mm heterogeneous in classrooms, and 0.5 mm in the staff room — three specs, one supplier, and the budget lands where the wear is.

Two cautions. First, transitions between thicknesses need a designed detail, usually a ramped profile — plan them on the drawing, not on site. Second, keep the colour family continuous across thicknesses so refits later do not strand a zone.

Static control fails quietly: the floor looks perfect while its resistance drifts out of range. The audit that catches it is always later than the cause, which is usually cleaning chemistry or a broken earth, not the sheet itself.

Measure three things at handover. System resistance to earth (RTG): most specs want 10⁶–10⁹ ohms per IEC 61340 for electronics areas. Resistance point-to-point (RPP): below 10⁶ ohms difference across a tile body confirms the conductive layer is continuous. And the earth connection itself: every copper strip bonded, every joint verified.

Then keep it alive: standard detergent only, no wax, and a resistance log re-checked every six months. An ESD floor without records is, from an auditor's chair, just a blue floor.