Peacocks Office Headquarters

F. Ball helps create impact for high street fashion retailer


A range of high performance floor smoothing underlayments by F. Ball have been used to deliver a smooth, resilient and high quality finish for office floors in the headquarters of high street fashion retailer, Peacocks, in Cardiff. A combination of Stopgap 300 HD and Stopgap 700 Superflex smoothing underlayments was applied to the subfloor prior to the installation of the new floorcoverings that were specified for the new, three-storey building.

The new floor covers a total surface area of 5,700m². Office design and construction company, Paramount Office Interiors, selected a foam-backed carpet tile for the majority of the workplace, while synthetic wood design flooring was selected to create impact in ‘front-of-office’ areas, including the reception and corridors.

However, before the new floorcoverings could be laid, a smoothing underlayment needed to be applied to the subfloors in order to create a smooth and even surface. As well as enhancing the aesthetic appearance of the floorcovering, smoothing underlayments also promote the longevity of the installation,  providing a firm and durable foundation to enable new floors to withstand the foot traffic and loads they are typically subjected to over their lifetime.

In Peacocks’ new office building, the subfloors consisted of metal, raised access flooring, as well as concrete that had already been covered with marble prior to Paramount’s specification. Each of these areas demanded a specific set of performance characteristics from a smoothing underlayment, which resulted in F. Ball’s Stopgap 300 HD and Stopgap 700 Superflex underlayments both being specified for the project.

Flooring contractor, Tony Gibbs, of AMG Flooring, comments: “Due to the large scale of the project, we needed high performance products that we could trust to deliver a good finish. Having used Stopgap smoothing underlayments for a number of previous installations, we were familiar with the flow and handling characteristics of the products, and knew they would be the ideal choice for Peacocks.”

Stopgap 300 HD was specified for the marble-covered areas of the site. Designed for use in heavy-duty areas, Stopgap 300 offers a high compressive and flexural strength to tolerate stresses imparted by heavy trafficking, a key benefit for the new Peacocks headquarters. Stopgap 300 is suitable for application over a wide range of absorbent and non-absorbent subfloors.

Meanwhile, Stopgap 700 Superflex was applied over the metal access flooring panels. F. Ball’s latest fibre-reinforced smoothing underlayment, Stopgap 700 Superflex offers high crack resistance to accommodate the natural movement in semi-flexible substrates, such as metal and plywood, as well as raised access flooring.

Both smoothing underlayments offer the added benefits of ‘self-flow’ smoothing properties and fast-drying times, which enable large areas to be covered quickly, and new floorcoverings to be installed without delay – a particular advantage in the race to occupy retail and office buildings.

Finally, Styccobond F41, a solvent-free carpet tile tackifier adhesive was used to adhere the 5,000m² of carpet tiles to the prepared subfloors. Suitable for use with bitumen/felt, non-woven fabric and other polymer backings, Styccobond F41 dries to provide a permanently tacky film to prevent loose lay carpet tiles from moving, while also allowing the tile to be easily lifted and replaced when necessary.