Gulf Construction Online - Vinyl floors make strong comeback

Carpets & Floor Coverings

Vinyl offers designers a range of colours and designs to choose from.

Vinyl floors make strong comeback

Vinyl’s image has suffered in the recent past, however this versatile flooring material has re-emerged stronger and with a greater diversity of design, colour and texture, as well as with the added benefits of safety and acoustic properties, says USG Middle East.

01 April 2006

Vinyl has suffered from extremely bad press over the years. However, this clichéd image of the material is far from today’s reality, says the Saudi Arabia-based USG Middle East, which has a partnership agreement with French manufacturer Gerflor to market its extensive range of PVC floorings in the local market.

“Vinyl flooring can be funky or functional and unobtrusive as the specifier chooses. Its robust qualities make it extremely durable, ensuring that it offers an excellent life cycle performance as well,” says Sam Geha, general sales manager of USG Middle East.

Design flexibility
Elaborating on the numerous benefits of the flooring material, he says: “Vinyl offers the specifier an extensive range of colour and designs to choose from. The wide selection in product design ranges from marble and stone to metal and wood, with both multicoloured and plain varieties being available. Catering to both traditional and contemporary tastes, these flooring products can be readily mixed and matched, ensuring that there is something for every taste and environment.
“Additionally, vinyl gives the flooring contractor greater flexibility during installation, as its consistency of thickness ensures that different pieces and designs can be used together, without compromising the levelling of the floor.”

Effective sound insulation
In addition to its extensive design flexibility, vinyl also delivers a wide range of additional benefits such as sound-proofing.
“The introduction of new regulations has demanded that specifiers consider noise levels in their buildings. This is particularly apparent in corridors and school halls and has led to a rise in the specification of acoustic flooring,” he says. “Gerflor’s comprehensive range of acoustic products have a closed cell foam backing, which deliver sound insulation properties up to 19 dB (decibels), making them ideally suited for use in classrooms, lecture halls and corridors, which have need for sound proofing.”

Safety features
He continues: “Safety is an increasingly important issue in today’s commercial and residential sectors and specifiers are greatly aware of the need to take every precaution possible to prevent accidents. This explains why safety flooring is now considered to be the largest growing sector of the commercial vinyl flooring market – currently representing 53 per cent of all vinyl sales. Gerflor’s Tarasafe innovative flooring range offers both great slip resistance and excellent cleaning qualities.
“In fact independent tests have shown the Sparclean-treated ranges to be up to 86 per cent easier to clean than untreated equivalents. It is for this reason that Tarasafe is widely specified in the UK for industrial kitchens, bars, hospitals as well as schools and other educational establishments.

Easy maintenance
“Vinyl floorings not only have longer durability but also extremely easy to maintain with relatively low wear-and-tear compared to other flooring materials.
“In addition, Gerflor’s entire product range contains high levels of environmentally-friendly PVC, ensuring that it not only wears well but also in many cases wears better than the material it imitates. For example, Nera Contract Wood is a highly realistic, wood alternative from Gerflor. However, unlike real wood, it is water-resistant, making it substantially easier to clean and maintain than laminates and other wood derivatives. It is also extremely durable and therefore wears well and does not indent easily. It also has the added feature of having high sound-absorption qualities to help reduce foot traffic noise,” he says.
A branch of the USG Corporation headquartered at Chicago, Illinois, Dammam-based USG Middle East is the leading marketing and distributing company for an extensive range of products, besides Gerflor floorings. USG has regional sales offices in Dammam, Riyadh and Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Dubai (UAE) and Beirut (Lebanon), which provides local expertise and support to an extensive distribution and sales network operating for over 25 years in the Middle East.
The company’s manufacturing operations for mineral fibre, laminated gypsum ceilings, Donn brand suspension systems and Sheetrock joint treatment products are based at Dammam.
Based in France, Gerflor is a renowned manufacturer of vinyl flooring for contract, sport, transport and residential uses with brand names like Taraflex, Mipolam, Gerflex, Tarabus, Traveller and Batifex. Interior designing of floors for homes and offices, indoor sports floors for gyms and fitness rooms, floors for the interior fitting of vehicles are all part of the varied Gerflor vinyl range of projects.
Since its inception in 1937 with the first homogenous PVC floor, the company has grown rapidly and is now staffed by 1,700 employees worldwide with industrial sites in France, Germany, Ireland and Thailand. Gerflor as a manufacturer of PVC floors is presumed to rank number three in the world, number two in Europe and is the leader in France.