Safety

ALTRO SERENADE REDUCES NOISE AND INCREASES COMFORT AT NEW £17M REACH FREE SCHOOL

Building Products Index Ltd June 25, 2019 acoustic flooring, Flooring, Rubber, Safety, Vinyl Leave a Comment

Altro Serenade™ acoustic flooring has been used throughout the new £17 million Reach Free School, in Rickmansworth, providing the highest level of sound reduction and comfort underfoot.

The newly-constructed school has created places for 840 secondary level students in a cutting-edge environment. Architect ADP created a very modern design for the school, and reducing noise throughout the new building was a priority.

ADP Associate Director, Neil Lister, said: “Our concept for the school was an open plan space with a lot of openings that connect the various floors. This meant the potential for noise and reverberation throughout the school was quite high, and we wanted to find ways to reduce that.

“We consulted an acoustician at the early stages of our design, and were advised that a flooring with an acoustic rating greater than 17dB would give us significant reduction in noise from footfall, chairs scraping in the classrooms and overall background noise volume.

“The school itself specified vinyl flooring rather than carpet, for robustness and ease of cleaning. It was also important for the school that the flooring would bring comfort underfoot.”

Altro Serenade flooring was recommended by Horizontal Limited, which installed the product. MD Jonathan Bown explained: “We needed a floor that not only had a high acoustic rating, but was also great looking, hard wearing, stylish, contemporary and very comfortable underfoot. I have been working with Altro for nearly 25 years and I knew they had a product that would fit the bill and that quality would be guaranteed.

“At 3.9mm thick and with 19dB impact sound insulation, Altro Serenade fit the brief perfectly. It’s ideal for this type of busy, noisy environment where there is a great deal of foot traffic. Many manufacturers struggle to make good acoustic flooring that doesn’t mark or indent but, with Altro Serenade, Altro has cracked this issue with a superb quality product.

“I love this flooring and would fit it every day. It’s sublime looking, with a very luxurious look and feel that raises a floor above the ordinary. It has a great colour palette – the school selected the shade Encore; a pale grey with a good textural design that will hide marks and scuffs over time. It’s a good colour base which complements the strong school colours of teal blue and purple.

“For the installer it’s a very easy floor to work with and fit, and a vital point is that it withstands the immense wear and tear during installation and construction. Some types of flooring have to be replaced even before the project is handed over to the client, because it gets so scratched and damaged during the build. This can add a great deal of cost to a project. But Altro Serenade never marks or scratches and stays looking pristine throughout.

“We laid just over 1,500m²of the flooring on the ground and first floor in all communal areas, stairs and classrooms, and it makes a huge impact on the whole look of the building. It looks stunning. People don’t fully appreciate how important a flooring can be for wellbeing and overall effect, but I was there the day the new school opened and I was blown away by how the flooring lifted the whole space.”

The new Reach Free School was built by Willmott Dixon. Senior Surveyor Iain Charnley commented: “We work closely with Altro and have a long-term supply agreement with them, so we know they are a trusted and professional company. Their ability to supply us with Altro Serenade quickly was vital and enabled us to complete the project on time under very tight deadlines. Their overall service and co-operation with us was also superb.

“The school was very involved in the selection of Altro Serenade and the headteacher wanted to put it through its paces before he gave the go-ahead. He was doubtful it could withstand the rigours of school life, so together we put it through some pretty tough ‘kick’ tests. This involved repeated kicking to see how quickly it would scuff. He was surprised and very impressed that is stood up to this treatment extremely well and it passed with flying colours.”

Richard Booth, Headteacher at The Reach Free School, is thrilled with his new school and how the Altro flooring is contributing to the look and feel of the space.

He said: “The school looks wonderful, the students and staff are very happy, and I must say that everyone who comes to look around comments on the flooring more than anything else. They assume it’s carpet, because it looks so smart, and they are astounded when I tell them it’s vinyl. The floor has pattern to it, which not only makes it look great, but it helps to hide marks. In terms of overall quality, it really is a huge cut above the other vinyl flooring we were looking at.

“In terms of comfort and noise reduction Altro Serenade is really helping, and anything that damps down the volume that the students create here is a huge plus for wellbeing. We find that furniture doesn’t mark the flooring, which means we can be so much more flexible in arranging the internal spaces without fear of damaging the flooring.

“I needed to be happy in my own mind that the flooring was tough enough for the continuous footfall, mud, dirt and potential scuffing it would be subjected to, so I put on my skiddiest shoes and took some time to see what it was made of. I struggled to make any marks on it, and I was amazed that a flooring that looked so good could also be practical and hard wearing.

“It cleans very well too, and comes up like new every time. I would recommend this flooring to anyone that wants a hard-wearing, great looking modern solution that also helps to reduce noise and increase comfort in the environment.”

Altro innovation and partnership key to century of success

Building Products Index Ltd May 30, 2019 Flooring, Rubber, Safety Leave a Comment

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Altro is celebrating 100 years in business. Founded in 1919 by a small group of individuals with a big idea, the company now has more than 900 employees globally, with a heritage of innovation including inventing safety flooring, developing a hygienic walls system and creating the world’s first adhesive-free safety floor.

Richard Kahn is Altro’s CEO, and the third generation to lead this Hertfordshire-based family company that has offices across Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific. “One successful innovation could be luck; repeated success needs a little help,” he explains. “We’ve always known that speaking with, listening to and partnering with customers, end users, contractors, engineers and designers is the key to getting what we do right. It’s allowed us to be bold and to explore design and functional possibilities, without losing sight of who we’re doing it for.”

Altro’s first safety floor was installed in 1950 in a church hall in Nottingham. Remarkably, that same flooring is still in place and when last tested still rates PTV≥40, meaning it has kept users safe for nearly 70 years. Altro has continued to turn creative thinking into practical real-world solutions that can transform everyday spaces into environments that improve the wellbeing of everyone that uses them. Innovations include developing sparkle-free safety flooring which has transformed design for dementia, and Altro XpressLay: the world’s first adhesive-free and fully recyclable safety flooring.

Altro shares its centenary with the Bauhaus design school, which was also founded in 1919 and is based in Dessau just a few hundred metres from Altro’s German site. In developing the new Altro Ensemble modular flooring collection, the design team took inspiration from the Bauhaus philosophy of bridging the gap between form and function to engineer products that meet the customers’ biggest challenges, such as the need for cleanability, sustainability and flexibility.

“While the world in 1919 couldn’t seem more different from today’s, our excitement at embracing and developing new technologies and ways of working is exactly the same as back then,” says Richard Kahn. “Add to this that we remain a family business, with family values and I think you have the reason why we’re here today, celebrating our centenary.”

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What do Adele, Die Hard, The Wonder Years and Altro Walkway 20 have in common?

Building Products Index Ltd November 27, 2018 Flooring, Safety Leave a Comment

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They all turn 30 in 2018.

Picture the scene: the hair was big, the shoulder pads were bigger and the mobile phones were enormous. At Altro’s head office in Letchworth Garden City, lorries started leaving with the first rolls of Altro Walkway 20.

The new safety floor had a Pendulum Test Value of ≥36, was available in eight shades and, at 2mm, was the thinnest product we offered at the time, offering a cost effective safety solution in areas where lino or a smooth vinyl might have previously been chosen.

Altro Walkway quickly became a customer favourite, installed across the world from Mexico to Australia and many countries in between.
In the years following its launch, Altro Walkway became our best-selling product. Bryan Adams’ Everything I Do and Wet Wet Wet’s Love is All Around spent a combined 31 weeks at the top of the charts in the nineties but they’ve got nothing on Altro Walkway. When it comes to longevity, it’s been with us nearly as long as 24,000 run-throughs of Isner versus Mahut’s 2010 record breaking 11 hour, 5 minute tennis match!

David Gatfield, Regional Technical Services Manager at Altro, has been with the company for 47 years. Recalling the arrival of Altro Walkway and customer feedback during the last thirty years, he says: “When Altro Walkway launched, it was welcomed both by the team here at Altro and our customers. Over the years I have installed countless thousands of metres and it’s one of my favourite products, no question. It’s robust yet forgiving and easy to work with, and I know people in the trade who won’t use any other 2mm safety floor; it’s the product of choice time and time again.”
To ensure that Altro Walkway continued to be suitable for multiple application areas, in 1992, Altro Walkway SD was launched, a static-dissipative version of Altro Walkway that offers a simple way of minimising the risk of damage to static-sensitive equipment, such as computers. This makes it the ideal choice for computer suites, laboratories and electronic assembly areas. This wasn’t the only addition during the nineties.

As building designs evolved, so did the demand for more colour choice for floors. “Blue, beige and grey shades are classics; popular both in the early days and today,” says Altro New Products Introduction Manager, David Brailsford. “During the 1990s and into the 2000s, interior design evolved, with the use of colour becoming more adventurous. Being such a versatile floor, it made sense that Altro Walkway was the perfect product to introduce a much wider palette. Shades were added, including Haze, Petrol and Copperbeech, until, in 2013, we had a choice of 42 colours, including several that were added following customer requests.”

As the new century established itself, advances in technology meant that our innovation team were able to develop and launch Altro XpressLay, the first adhesive-free safety floor. Its design and colour palette mirrored that of Altro Walkway, still our most popular product. It gave our customers more choice when facing an installation where a traditional, adhered floor couldn’t be installed. The shared shades meant that the two floors could be laid side by side for example, a damp area of a refurb which may have previously caused problems could have Altro XpressLay installed, with Altro Walkway running through the rest of the installation. As usual with Altro, it’s about giving you as many options as we can to help you get the job done.

Richard Kahn, CEO Floors and Managing Director, Altro Group says: “At the time Altro Walkway was launched I was in the London sales force and I remember all the discussion about the merits of launching a 2.00mm floor following a 30 year history of manufacturing and marketing Altro Classic 25 and Altro Designer 25 2.5mm safety flooring. But, thanks to the tremendous growth in the global market for safety flooring and the tremendous performance of Altro Walkway, it has proved to be one of the best decisions we ever made.”

So onto the next 30 years and, after all, for a company that has been around for a century, 30 years is just the beginning really…

Altro Altro Walkway

Altro create a relaxing environment for playful Dachshunds

Building Products Index Ltd February 26, 2018 Flooring, Resin, Rubber, Safety Leave a Comment

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Altro Cantata, Altro Whiterock Satins

Pigglefairy Puppies, based near Kings Lynn, are council-licenced breeders of Kennel Club registered miniature Dachshunds. The kennel where the dogs slept was five years old, and was starting to look tired. It needed a refit but owner Debbie Casemore wanted a solution that would not stress the dogs. She also needed a quick turnaround to make sure the dogs were able to return to the kennel quickly.

Debbie said: “I wanted the best for the dogs, and hygiene is so important for their welfare. I wanted an easy to clean floor and wall solution that would have no edges or crevices for the dogs to chew on. It also had to be quick to fit so the dogs could go back to their routine.”

Altro Cantata was chosen to provide an easy to clean floor that would be quick to install. Altro adhesive-free floors are installed without adhesive, which is a benefit when adhesive smells can cause stress. Altro Whiterock Satins in ‘Fawn’ was chosen as an easy to maintain and hygienic solution that looked good.

Debbie continued: “The colours of Altro Cantata and Altro Whiterock Satins are nice and neutral, and look really professional and clean.”

Altro Cantata and Altro Whiterock Satins were installed by Simon Johnson at Simply Interiors.

Simon said: “Since Altro adhesive-free floors were launched, it is now makes up approximately 80% of our safety flooring jobs. The speed for clients and ourselves has proved invaluable! Altro Cantata is a great addition to the range.”

Altro Cantata is a decorative, adhesive-free floor that creates maximum impact with minimum downtime. Using our award-winning adhesive-free installation method, it can be welded and walked on the same day, and at the end of its life can be removed easily, allowing it to be reused or recycled. It is ideal for busy public spaces where disruption needs to be minimal, plus there are no associated adhesive odours. Altro Cantata’s 16 soft-look shades, which range from subtle naturals to beautifully vivid, enable you to set the desired tone yet it also has the durability needed for medium to high traffic areas.

Altro Whiterock Satins provides a stain-resistant, wipeclean surface. Available in a range of solid, satin-finish shades – from subtle pastels through to vivid brights – Altro Whiterock Satins can be used where aesthetics are important.

adhesive-free floors Altro Altro Cantata Altro whiterock satins Pigglefairy Puppies wipeclean surface

Altro solution brings life to design-led Hull birth centre

Building Products Index Ltd November 27, 2017 Flooring, protection, Safety, Walls Leave a Comment

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A complete floors and walls solution from Altro has been used to create a relaxing, stylish home from home environment for mums- to-be in a new birth centre at Hull Women and Children’s Hospital.

The new midwife-led Fatima Allam Birth Centre meets the needs of women who want a more natural childbirth experience.

Andrew Ledger, contracts manager for Apleona, which provides facilities management for the building, oversaw the new construction and was part of the team that devised the overall concept.

“We specified Altro floors and walls from the start because we
are using these products elsewhere in the hospital with a great deal of success. They meet all our clinical hygiene and infection control needs, while also offering a superb range of colours and textures, which makes them ideal for creating a modern and stylish environment.

“The quality and durability of Altro is a major factor too because, as a PFI project, the long-term cost is under close scrutiny.

Adele Howitt, from Studio Eleven Gallery & Workshop in Hull, won a commission from the hospital to design the interior concept.

“Once we had decided on colours, we worked closely with Altro to look at the specific products. They completely understood our practical and aesthetic needs.”

“I used Altro Whiterock Digiclad to create statement walls from floor to ceiling. This is a fantastic product for design-led projects because you can print any image or photograph onto it, and the quality is superb.”

Adele chose Altro Whiterock Satins for the shower rooms. She says “It has some wonderful shades, and the subtle, sheer texture is very stylish.”

Flooring for the birth centre was key to creating the homely, non- clinical feel. Andrew Ledger and the project team wanted natural, warm, wood-effect flooring and chose Altro Wood.

Andrew says: “Wet areas in clinical environments need to be very safe underfoot, so we chose Altro Pisces safety flooring for both the shower rooms and around the birthing pool. This flooring performs superbly in both wet or dry conditions, and with bare feet or shoes, so it’s perfect for keeping both patients and staff safe. Altro Pisces also looks good enough to work within our design themes and there are some great colours.”

The flooring was installed by Floorcovers UK. Partner Phil Morris said: “For quality and reliability Altro is the best, and they are a pleasure to work with.

The Altro wall sheet was fitted by Richardson Claddings. Owner Joe Richardson comments:

“The beauty of the Altro walls system is that it is so quiet, easy and clean to install. Altro sends the sheets to us ready-cut, which means minimal cutting or shaping on site.”

Andrew Ledger says: “We get a lot of medical professionals visiting from around the world and they say the centre is the best of its kind they have seen anywhere.

“Most importantly, the mothers who have given birth here are thrilled with it too.

“After each birth, the rooms are completely disinfected and cleaned, and the Altro floors and walls are proving very easy to maintain.

“We are delighted with this amazing facility.”

All information is correct at the time of print and is subject to change without prior notice. Visit us at www.altro.co.uk for more information and updates.

For further information on Altro’s vast product range of integrated flooring and wall cladding systems: 01462 707604 enquiries@altro.com www.altro.co.uk

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Altro launch new Altro Wood™ Safety collection

Building Products Index Ltd June 27, 2017 Flooring, Safety Leave a Comment

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Altro have introduced new wood-look floors that combine functional performance with modern design to create spaces that really work for the people that use them. They give the functional performance you’d expect from an Altro safety floor and provide sustained slip resistance (PTV ≥36) for the lifetime of the flooring.

EXTENDED! Altro Wood™ Safety provides safety underfoot with 20 contemporary and traditional options, including a bamboo-look fine-line design and wide plank designs. It is designed to cope with medium to heavy traffic areas in hospitals, retail and education environments.

NEW! Altro Wood™ Safety Comfort is a 2.85mm floor with 12 options that provides comfort underfoot and offers 14dB sound reduction which is great for noisy environments. It is suitable for wheeled traffic and low residual indentation facilitates the flexible use of equipment and furniture, including hospital beds.

Both ranges are perfect for corridors, patient rooms and living rooms in hospitals; circulation areas and corridors in kindergartens, school and universities; and retail environments. Altro Wood Safety Comfort provides the additional benefit of comfort underfoot and is also suitable for student accommodation, home adaptations and social housing.

With matching design and colour options across the two ranges, you can achieve a consistent look in different areas. Select from the ranges for the right technical performance required for the area.

For environments that need to promote wellbeing, Altro floors and walls can be used to create a biophilic design – using shades and images found in nature. This helps create a sense of calm and studies have shown it can speed up the recovery process.

So whether you want to create warm and homely aesthetics, or transform a space into a cool, contemporary feature area, our new ranges can help you make your design vision a reality.

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DECORATIVE, ADHESIVE-FREE ALTRO CANTATA HITS THE RIGHT NOTE

Building Products Index Ltd April 27, 2017 Flooring, Safety Leave a Comment

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Altro has unveiled its latest innovation: decorative, adhesive-free Altro Cantata^TM flooring – designed to create maximum impact with minimum downtime. Altro Cantata’s 16 soft-look shades, which range from subtle naturals to beautifully vivid, allow you to create just the right tone with endless design possibilities.

The new flooring has been designed for use in busy environments where days of downtime and disruption are simply not an option, such as hospitals, schools and general circulation areas. Using Altro’s award-winning adhesive-free installation method, with Altro Cantata you can halve installation time compared with a traditional floor. No adhesive also means there are no odours.

Altro Cantata is a durable 2.2mm floor that can tolerate medium to heavy-duty traffic, meaning that it performs in busy spaces as you would expect from an Altro floor. It is also easy to clean, so its striking shades look good long-term. Altro Cantata holds as effectively as an Altro floor installed using adhesive, with no rucks or movement. It achieves optimum installation results and carries the Altro 10 year guarantee.

Altro Cantata is 100% recyclable post-consumer and can be re-used in other installations. Waste is minimal as only one product is used. Any leftover floor can be used elsewhere, returned to Altro, or a Recofloor collection point, for recycling. At the end of its life, it can be removed quickly and reused or recycled. And, as you would expect from Altro, Altro Cantata contains bioplasticisers and is phthalate-free.

Altro Cantata harmonises perfectly with other Altro floors, plus Altro Whiterock™ hygienic wall cladding and the Altro Fortis™ wall, door and corner protection system, allowing you to create the look and feel you want, throughout.

100% recyclable adhesive-free Altro Altro Cantata phthalate-free safety flooring

Let us help you create the ‘wow’ factor with no slip-ups

Building Products Index Ltd November 24, 2016 Flooring, protection, Safety, Walls Leave a Comment

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Altro Pisces™ and Altro Whiterock™ give you a slip-resistant, hygienic and easy to clean
solution for wet environments but as functional as these partners may be, they also combine to create a thing of beauty!

NEW Altro Pisces

NEW Altro Pisces has a soft-look finish that is more homely than traditional safety flooring. It’s also ideal for creating a ‘high-end’ look for hotels and spas.

Altro Whiterock Satins™

Altro Whiterock Satins is available in a range of solid, decorative, satin shades, enabling you to create the exact ambience needed. If you need a more traditional look then Altro Whiterock White is the option for you.

Altro Whiterock Digiclad

A reproduction of a photographic image or vector art, Altro Whiterock Digiclad creates wet environments with impact. Perfect for swimming-pool surrounds, spas and changing areas, it can match any decor or theme. As well as good looks, its hard-coat technology provides scratch-resistant properties for added durability.

Learn more about how Altro can help you choose and install safer wet environments.

Altro: Specialist products for specialist solutions

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Altro – Oil, grease, flour? We’ve got you covered

Building Products Index Ltd November 2, 2015 Flooring, Safety Leave a Comment

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Testing and contaminants

Food and drink preparation and cooking areas can spell danger. Grease, fat, cooking oil, flour, milk, food particles and the occasional chopped carrot – all can end up on floors and walls.

Altro’s sustainable, integrated safety flooring and hygienic wall cladding system provides long-lasting safe and hygienic surfaces for wet, dusty and greasy conditions in commercial kitchens.

Real world tests for real world conditions

The standard pendulum test for shod slip resistance uses water. Test results are rated with a PTV reading; a reading of PTV≥36 with Altro safety flooring represents a one in a million chance of slipping on a wet surface.

A wet surface only covered in clean water, that is.

You know that water only represents a small proportion of the hazards a kitchen worker would encounter on a daily basis. So we decided to put our flooring to a real world test; using a variety of different contaminants found in a commercial kitchen.

The reality is kitchen workers are busy. Oil evaporates into the air and settles on the floor when it cools – requiring constant cleaning to prevent a slippery surface. Small spills like milk or flour could cause a very real slip hazard.

A busy lunch hour would mean a lot of oil and cooking ingredients on the floor, and not enough time to keep the floor as clean and hazard-free as you would ideally like.

Covers don’t matter – contaminants do

Choosing your safety flooring by how many customers you serve a day doesn’t address the problems all kitchens share. Whether you are serving five or 500 customers a day, kitchens encounter the same types of contaminants.

The rules for health and safety don’t distinguish between small cafes and large five star restaurants –all are required to meet the same standards.

Because when it comes to safety, all commercial kitchens are the same.

What do you need and why?

Tests prove different contaminants pose different safety challenges. Whilst the risk from vegetable oil may come as no surprise, the other most significant danger comes from greasy water – and what kitchen can avoid that?

Typical contaminants in a kitchen are not water and motor oil, which is what the Pendulum and Ramp tests use.

The test we used was the standard PTV pendulum test BS7976, but instead of using only water as the test contaminant, we used a range of other contaminants found in a typical kitchen.

This graph shows test results carried out on Altro Stronghold 30 with common kitchen contaminants, including:

cooking oils
greasy water from washing up
milk, flour, plastic wrap

Altro kitchens solutions retains a one in a million chance of slipping with a variety of kitchen contaminants.

These contaminants are generally more viscous or substantial than water, creating a thicker layer between floor and shoe.

This squeeze film thickness prevents the foot making contact with the floor and increases the risk of slipping.

This table shows how the performance across floors with different pendulum and R ratings perform with the different contaminants.

In commercial kitchens where vegetable oil and greasy water are likely to be present, only Altro Stronghold 30 gives a one in a million chance of slipping.

The test results prove:

Altro Stronghold 30 has the required slip resistance to keep you safe with the range of contaminants illustrated including cooking oils and greasy water which would typically be found in a commercial kitchen

Altro Stronghold 30 retains a one in a million chance of slipping with common kitchen contaminants

You must choose your flooring to cater for contaminants, and not the size of your kitchen or number of covers

Not all safety flooring is as safe as Altro’s. Some floorings only have a thin slip-resistant coating or emboss, which can easily wear away. Some floorings only provide slip resistance in dry conditions. Altro Stronghold 30 has sustained slip resistance, for the wet and dry contaminants commonly found in kitchens.

Altro Stronghold 30 safety flooring gives you peace of mind, allowing you to keep up with the pace of your business without having to compromise on safety.

Altro commercial kitchen solutions: we’ve got you covered.

For more information, visit http://www.altro.co.uk/Commercial-Kitchens

Altro hygenic wall cladding integrated safety flooring slip resistance sustainable