A prestigious office renovation in Birmingham has been completed with a full BAL solution – including BAL AF Max anti-fracture tile adhesive, to remove the need for an uncoupling system.
Large format 1500 x 200mm porcelain plank tiles from Tiles UK (Leeds) were installed by Sutton Stone and Ceramics on a 300sqm walkway.
The subfloor was a suspended Caber-Dek type board system, so to ensure structural rigidity, it was over-boarded by the main contractors with 280 sheets of BAL Board 12mm boards, glued and screwed to take out any deflection.
The porcelain tiles were installed using BAL AF Max – a high-strength, high-yield S2 anti-fracture tile adhesive.
As an ‘all-in-one’ anti-fracture system, BAL AF Max is an innovative technology designed to absorb the lateral stress from the substrate. This removes the need for expensive traditional technologies such as uncoupling mat systems, saving project costs, reducing labour time through removing the need for cutting and installing the mats and freeing up storage space needed for large rolls of uncoupling mats.
As a high yield product, one 17kg bag can go up to 8.4sqm with a 10mm x 10mm notched trowel meaning only 4 bags are needed for 30sqm, compared to 10–11 bags of adhesive for a traditional ‘tile adhesive – uncoupling mat – tile adhesive’ system install. After extensive testing, the company reports that BAL AF Max provides a 40% lower-cost system, 70% faster installation time, and 70% less material weight than traditional uncoupling systems.
On this project 56 bags of AF Max were supplied by Tiles UK, which easily met the metreage required.
After the tiles were installed, they were grouted with BAL Micromax3 ECO water repellant and anti-microbial wall and floor grout in Anthracite, with movement and perimeter joints sealed with colour and texture-matched BAL Micromax Grout-Effect Sealant.
Talking about the project, Garry Hughes from Sutton Stone and Ceramics said: ‘My team were very impressed with BAL AF Max, especially how nice and light it was in the bucket. The product went really far, was easy to spread and seemed to stick and bond to the tiles and BAL Boards really well.’
Garry, whose team also completed the tiling on the toilet blocks, disabled toilets, printer blocks and kitchens, added: ‘We tiled direct to the BAL Boards with BAL AF Max without any matting, as we knew that BAL AF Max would absorb any lateral movement.
‘We didn’t realise there was a product like this on the market, but we were really impressed by it.
‘We were a little bit worried about the strength element, but Keiron [Birch, BAL Area Sales Manager] reassured us that the unique anti-fracture technology would mean it would be absolutely solid – and it has been.’
Tiling: Sutton Stone & Ceramics
Tiles and Materials: Tiles UK (Leeds)
BAL Specification: Julian Clarke
BAL Sales Support: Keiron Birch and Colin Whatmough
BAL Technical Support: David Hilton
