St Teilo's, Cardiff

Altro XpressLay adhesive-free saves time at new Cardiff school

Altro XpressLay adhesive-free safety flooring has provided a significant time and cost saving solution in the construction of the new St Teilo’s Church in Wales High School in Cardiff.

The £26 million school was designed by architects Austin-Smith: Lord. It is a contemporary design, with classrooms clustered in blocks off a main central ‘street’.

Kate Smith, designer at Austin-Smith: Lord, said: “Due to the huge length of space of the school’s main street, the floor construction included many movement joints, which had a knock on effect to the movement requirements of the floor finish.

“The main contractor, Willmott Dixon, suggested that we look at Altro XpressLay adhesive-free as it can be laid straight to slab with no DPM and no fixing joints - creating a huge time and cost saving for the project. We were now confident we had a product that could meet this specific need.

The Altro products at St Teilo’s were installed by CS Flooring, in Cardiff. Owner Anthony Mynett said: “This was the biggest Altro XpressLay adhesive-free installation we have ever done, at 6,250m². It was a perfect example of how the product can be used to cut costs and accelerate a building programme without sacrificing quality, longevity or aesthetics.”

CS Flooring also installed Altro Reliance 25 safety flooring and Altro Whiterock Satins hygienic wall sheets in the school service and eating areas, using black and red colour schemes to denote raw and cooked food preparation areas.

Altro Reliance 25 is a 2.5mm-thick, hard-wearing safety flooring which includes coloured quartz crystals in exciting base colours to enhance any interior scheme.

Altro Whiterock Satins is a durable, grout-free, water-tight smooth wall sheet designed for building environments that are required to meet strict hygiene standards. The sheets provide a stain resistant, wipe-clean surface with no gaps or cracks for bacteria to hide in.

Chris Woodruff, Principal Surveyor at main contractor Willmott Dixon, commented on the use of Altro XpressLay adhesive-free on the St Teilo’s project: “It has proved to be a quality product that saved us time and cost on a project where we were able to provide betterment on the delivery programme.”