F. Ball’s subfloor preparation and flooring adhesive products have been used to renovate the floors of the four storey Open Air School in Amsterdam, one of the city’s national monuments. After the building won one million Euros towards a restoration project in a TV/radio show competition, project company, D. Dergent, used F. Ball’s primer, smoothing underlayment and adhesive products to restore the 12,000m² floor area of the historic building.
Originally built in 1928, the Open Air School was constructed as part of the open air school movement which called for schools to be built to provide access to the outdoors. With its large windows and open construction, the architecture of the building was so unique that it influenced many other school buildings erected during the movement.
To restore the floors, Stopgap 300 HD smoothing underlayment was pump-applied across the whole subfloor to create a smooth, even and durable base for the final linoleum floorcovering. Stopgap 300 HD is a rapid drying, water-based underlayment which is protein free to prevent bacterial growth. Moreover, the heavy duty smoothing underlayment provides high compressive and flexural strength, which ensured that the new floor is able to withstand impact and stresses imparted by frequent floor traffic, as experienced at the Open Air School.
Prior to the installation of Stopgap 300, the cementitious subfloor was primed with F. Ball’s Stopgap P131 primer. A neoprene primer, Stopgap P131 prevents smoothing underlayments drying out too rapidly and promotes their adhesion to the subfloor.
To adhere the linoleum floorcovering to the prepared subfloor, Styccobond F54 high grab linoleum adhesive was applied. Selected due to its proven high-performance characteristics, F54 has been designed specifically for use with linoleum floorcoverings. A combination of long open time and high initial grab ensures that the product is extremely user friendly and contractors can trust F54 to achieve a successful installation every time.
Dennis Dergent of D. Dergent, explains: “The Open Air School is a very special building in Amsterdam so we knew we had to provide an aesthetically pleasing and high quality finish. We pump applied the smoothing underlayment throughout the building as it enabled us to cover the large area quickly. Stopgap 300’s rapid flow and excellent self-smoothing properties made it ideal for pump application and helped to speed up the installation process. I was very impressed with F. Ball’s products and now use them on most projects.”
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