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The Holistic Approach – Better For Healthcare
Naomi Cole, segment executive at Tarkett, examines changes in healthcare design: IN the days of Florence Nightingale, hospitals were designed to create an indoor environment close to that found outside by using natural ventilation, radiant heating and plenty of natural light, especially sunlight. Many tuberculosis clinics even included outdoor day-beds to maximise patient recovery. Through the Victorian era, public health was the guiding principle in building design. As healthcare standards improved with the discovery of penicillin...
read moreLuxury Vinyl Tiles – Just What The Doctor Ordered
Paul Barratt, commercial sales director at Karndean Designflooring, discusses the key considerations in specifying new or replacement flooring in healthcare locations: WITH steady footfall, wheelchair use and people frequently coming in from the outside, floors in hospitals and healthcare buildings have a lot to deal with on a daily basis. Such a demanding environment can create a long list of criteria for a new floorcovering, but there are some essential considerations for contractors. These environments need a highly practical...
read moreFocus On Healing Environments From The Floor Up
Emma Goulding, of Altro, explains recent changes in the role of flooring in healthcare settings: THE traditional priorities for flooring in hospitals, health centres and care homes remain the same – safety, hygiene, ease of cleaning and long-life. Important new research on design for therapeutic environments, however, shows flooring having an increasingly important role. This creates a valuable opportunity for skilled fitters, as well as flooring manufacturers! Just one year ago we could not have foreseen how hospitals would...
read moreBrought To Heal
Flooring in healthcare locations is playing an increasingly important role: Altro Aquariussafetyflooring has been used by a family in Bedfordshire which had a disabled relative coming to live with them. An area of concern for the Riley family was the bathroom floor, which had to be safe for all the family, as well as for the carers who would be coming into the home. When the Rileys contacted their local authority to find out about Disabled Facilities Grants for adaptations, they were advised that studded safety flooring (suitable for...
read moreSmooth Operators
Good surface preparation is vital for successful floorcovering installations: Ardex teamedupwith flooring contractor Superior Finish Contracts of St Ives, Cambridgeshire, to provide a 2500sq m fast track refurbishment of the main reception, corridors and refectory at Peterborough Regional College. The college had to remain in operation throughout the refurbishment, so efficient weekend operating procedures had to be delivered which would allow the project to be completed as quickly as possible. Ardex took moisture readings of the...
read moreHow Dry Is Dry? How Clean Is Clean?
WHY is there a great variation in drying times, even when a cleaning technician cleans to the same standards and procedures every time? Well, there are several reasons. For example, on a ‘good’ day the air temperature will be high, the humidity will be low, there will be good ventilation, the carpet may be woven with a wool pile with only light soiling and your HWE machine will be working to its maximum potential as the mains electricity is at its peak of 230 volts (up to a 10% reduction in voltage should be allowed for...
read moreDifferent Finishes Work Differently With UFH
RECENT changes to SAP and SBEM have had the effect of giving a building a better energy rating if it has UFH in a timber floor than if it has UFH in screed/concrete, or if it has radiator heating. The improvement in SAP is sufficient that, if a house with timber UFH is powered using water heated by a ground-source heat pump, a house which would otherwise be rated Level C will instead be rated Level B. The most important reason for this is because timber floor constructions have lower thermal mass than screed/concrete. As a consequence,...
read moreNeglect Proper Priming & Risk Failure
I HAVE previously focused on how to correctly prepare non-absorbent surfaces (see my column in the March issue of CFJ. This month I will provide advice and guidance on an essential part of subfloor preparation, priming. Perceived by some contractors as unnecessary, costly or time-consuming, primers can be the key to a successful flooring installation. Priming can often be overlooked when preparing a subfloor for the installation of a floorcovering, yet its absence is a common cause of installation failure, along with the poor...
read moreSaving The Planet Does Not Cost The Earth
OVER the years of writing this column I’ve discussed many times the flaw, as I see it of the carrot and stick approach employed by ‘governments of the day’ to encourage us all to be more environmentally friendly, to recycle more and to choose sustainable options over those that clearly are finite. As far as I can see it the size of stick almost always seems to outbalance the carrot we’re offered as an incentive to comply or modify our behaviour. Far from encourage us or motivate us to be greener, the big sticks of legislation,...
read moreGetting The Measure Of Floors & Walls
WITH more flooring contractors offering a floors and walls ‘package’ to customers, we are increasingly asked about the installation of hygienic PVCu wall finishes, and the maximum substrate moisture level before installing. There are many similarities between PVC floor and wall finishes, and their basic requirements are exactly the same. Walls substrates must be smooth, sound, dry and free of contamination. As semi rigid PVCu wall cladding systems are traditionally fixed with either a two-part polyurethane adhesive or a single-part...
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